No gas, no water – ragweed galore!

In 1979 I was rather young to comprehend the severity of the Iranian gas crisis that affected the US - national shortages, closed pumps = fear.
I was glad to have my pre-teen with me today as we searched for gasoline. We talked at length how his generation is going to require the foresight to make this cease – obviously my generation (and the generations before me) failed miserable. Our shortages here in the south are regional, so you people up north aren’t even dealing with this now, however; the big picture is not just due to the recent hurricanes! Why weren’t alternatives fuels researched LONG ago to lessen our dependence on oil in general – not just foreign oil??? I don’t get it?!
We drove from one station to the next looking for the clues… if the price numbers on their signs are missing, they don’t have regular gas, altho’ they may have diesel. If there are plastic bags on the pump handles, they are out totally. If there are cars wrapped around the block while honking & screaming ensues and everyone looks perturbed and ready to attack, then the odds are that they have a limited supply of gas.
The gas truck arrived at our local grocery store only to be bombarded by patrons lining up as fast as they could. In an instant the lines were 15 – 25 cars long. These cars blocked the parking available for shoppers. One guy had fallen asleep in the driver’s seat of his car waiting in line!
Thankfully I had about ¼ of a tank left! I found a little mom ‘n pop’s place (notorious for being at least $.15/gal. more than everyone else) that had regular Plus only for $4.35/gallon. It killed me to pay it, but I had to – I only had to wait for about 20 minutes.
The paper today says there is no end in sight!
GA continues with the drought, too. We’ve yet to use our fire pit we built in the back.
There is, however, a surplus of GA ragweed available… too bad my mini-van doesn’t run on this!