DONNIE JOHNSTON: On Gas Prices, Beer Joints, and Other Odds and Ends
"Finding cheap gas is like having the first ripe tomato. It is more about bragging rights than anything else."
By Donnie Johnston
COLUMNIST
How about a few odds and ends today?
Gasoline prices are down. I’ve seen the price of a gallon of gas as low as $2.65 recently and a barrel of crude oil dropped into the $58 range two weeks ago (now just above $60).
It always amazes me to what lengths people will go to save a penny on gas. I have a friend that will drive 20 miles to fill up if the price there is five cents cheaper.
Let’s break that down. My tank holds about 11 gallons and the most I ever need is 10 gallons. Five cents a gallon difference on a 10-gallon fill-up equates to 50 cents saved.
The standard IRS business mileage rate for 2024 was 67 cents per mile. If I drive 10 miles to save five cents a gallon on gas, I have used my vehicle (wear and tear under government standards) to the tune of $6.70. So, in effect, I have lost $6.10 in the deal. That makes no sense whatsoever.
If my vehicle had a 100-gallon tank, I would only save $5. And any vehicle with a 100-gallon tank is likely going to burn more than $5 worth of fuel to get to a station that has gas five cents cheaper.
Finding cheap gas is like having the first ripe tomato. It is more about bragging rights than anything else.
Sad news. They tore down the old beer joint on Rt. 340 in Jefferson County, West Virginia.
The West Virginia Department of Transportation is four-laning Rt. 340 from the Virginia line to the existing four-lane road near Charles Town and the new route went right through that old beer joint. Progress! (Shed a small tear here.)
That place was the proverbial hot spot on the county (in this case, state) line and it not only offered a cold brew (so I am told), but hot dances on weekends.
Being a semi-good Baptist, I never darkened the door of that place (I never knew if it had a name), but many times I drove by there just before midnight on a Saturday night and saw the parking lot full with vehicles up in the adjacent field.
A friend who was part of a country-rock band said that beer joint was a swinging place on a Saturday night and while passing you could almost see the walls bulging from the loud music.
That place had West Virginia character, with old trucks and a tractor or two sitting around. It was a fixture on Rt. 340 and now it is gone, the site paved over with asphalt. Yes, the highway will be safer when the improvements are completed, but what is more important, safety or a beer joint with character just across the county/state line?
WVDOT also demolished a nice restaurant up the road a ways, but eating places are everywhere. Beer joints on the county line are getting harder and harder to find, especially those with abandoned pickup trucks out back.
They should have declared that beer joint a historical site and engineered the road around it, just so I could wonder what was going on inside on a Saturday night.
Election Day is finally in the rearview mirror. Thank goodness! As has long been the custom, we have had three months of negative campaigning and mud slinging and now the people have had their say.
The problem is that now we have gone through this election, we turn our attention to next year’s mid-terms. In other words, we go from one election to another. The cycle never ends.
Sometimes I think we should only let single people vote because the majority of the time husbands and wives find themselves in opposite political camps and the wife’s vote cancels out her husband’s. So, what’s the point?
I suppose, in effect, single people already control the elections.
The ladybugs are back. They were a little late this year, but they finally showed up en masse after last week’s rain, which was sorely needed (some Shenandoah Valley towns are under water restrictions).
In contrast, those Japanese lantern flies were finally nailed by the frost. The word is that we should step on them to eradicate this pest (like that would do it).
Those things must have eyes in their backsides because every time I try to sneak up on one, he is gone before I put my foot down. But a friend discovered that if you stomp them from the front, they don’t move. Strange.
Those things are going to mean big trouble for trees and crops next year.
I started cracking walnuts late last month and now have about a quart done. I cleaned 4,200 walnuts and have now cracked about 400 of them. Forty-two hundred walnuts translate to about 10 quarts—if the winter weather doesn’t get me before I finish (they must be cracked outside).
I already have that annual hole in my thumb that will not heal until cracking season is over.
Don’t bother to ask me why I do it. Just a yearly ritual. But those walnuts do taste great in brownies and apple cakes.
Finally, what’s with these state troopers? I was on Interstate 81 recently doing 80 and a state policeman—no lights or sirens—passed me like I was standing still.
Then, the same thing happened on Interstate 68 in Western Maryland the other day.
No speed limits?
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