We all have memories of unusual things. Well, I remember when you could buy gas cheap, really cheap . That was back in 1940, a long time ago. Don’t believe me? I have the picture to prove it. Mother took a picture of goats pulling some sort of contraption. The gas station sign happened to be in the picture, too. There it is – anti-knock for fourteen cents per gallon and ethyl for fifteen cents per gallon. For a penny more, you got their better grade. Do you remember when the engine would knock if you used too low a grade of gasoline? I do. When that happened, Dad would buy a few gallons of Ethyl grade to mix with it. That took care of the knock.

Back in the late forties, when I was first married, money was tight. When I needed gas, it was time to search under the car seats or dump out my purse. There was always some change somewhere. Scratch together a dollar’s worth of change. Gas was only three gallons for a dollar. Not everywhere but poor folks like us knew where to go.

We drove cars first used by someone else. They were well broken in by the time we got our hands on them. Back in the day, most cars survived very well on the cheaper blend of gasoline. Even Dad’s old twelve cylinder four door Lincoln he bought at the end of the War didn’t knock too badly on the cheaper fuel.

I also remember when gas prices started to raise. With price controls, there wasn’t much inflation during the War, but that changed with peacetime. No more rationing and no more cheap gas. We were furious. The prices rose, slowly at first, with apologies, then more, with no apologies.

We don’t say “FILL ER UP!” anymore. Now, it’s how much do we dare put on our credit card.