Classical gas

By Libby

This story about how a corporate chain convenience store inadvertently sold premium gas for 35 cents a gallon is hysterical. I sum up up the funny part at Newhoggers but I'd like to pose the question here too. If you suddenly discovered a store was charging that little for gas would you tell the clerk, or would you tell your friends?

I figure for myself, I don't use premium gas in the Toyota so I probably wouldn't have noticed and I most probably wouldn't have gone there if I found out through the grapevine, anticipating the ensuing traffic jam that finally tipped the clerks off. But I can understand how people would get excited about it. One woman quoted expressed wonder at paying that little for gas.

I actually remember paying 30 cents a gallon at the height of the great price war of 71 in Winsted, CT. Winsted was a funny little town, half stoned out hippie and half hot rodding greasers. It had a long Main Street with three gas stations on it. One at each end and one in the middle. The hot rodders used to drive up and down the street, all night long in their souped up rides that got eight miles to the gallon and needed to be gassed up a couple of times a night.

There were a lot of them, rumbling around that endless loop, enough to keep three gas stations in business. There was one section of town that fronted the river and had no businesses on it, and across the street was a long and really high stone wall. I think maybe there was a church on top of it. They would largely park there to occassionally congregate, although some mingled with the hippies that mostly took over the village green.

The summer of 71 the gas stations got into a price war. For a week or so they kept dropping the prices every day, sometimes twice a day. I think at the lowest point one station may have been charging 28 cents. I don't know what started the feud. It ended as suddenly as it began. But even at the customary 35 cents, and a big old gas guzzling Chrysler, driving around for no reason was a cheap pastime.

We used to drop the top on the convertible and drive around the back roads, deliberately trying to get lost. We found some beautiful places along the way. Driving was so much fun then.