Alone, at the Bottom of the World (part 35)

Oil Embargo and Driving on a Sunday

Just when you thought Nixon had only Watergate to worry about, the OAPEC nations dive in with an oil embargo. Looks like Stuart bought the gas-guzzler at just the wrong time.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dakiraun/5828670440/

I really don't know how Nixon kept all those 'plates' in the air. There was the Watergate break-in and the arrests, the investigations and the Washington Post, Woodward and Bernstein, resignations of White House aides and the Senate hearings, and then! the Yom Kippur war in October 1973. 

Why was there a Yom Kippur war? Well (take a deep breath), the Arab countries didn't like losing territory during the 1967 6-Day War, and attacked Israel in 1973 to get them back and Israel went into full nuclear alert and several countries resupplied Israel after the Soviet Union resupplied the Arabs, and then the Arab nations made an oil embargo on the nations that resupplied Israel. 

Whew! There it is, in all its (Wikipedia) glory. 

Enter Stuart's gas-guzzling 4-door sedan. All of this attacking and embargoing made gasoline much more scarce and expensive. And gas stations were closed on Sundays.

But now Christmas was over and school would start and we had to go, leaving on a Saturday afternoon. The gas tank was filled on Friday night (a tough thing to do! waiting in long gas lines and worrying they would close just as we got to the pump - do you people remember this??). 

DRAT all forms of oil embargoes and sneak attacks.

We left in the midst of a snow storm, and the next 24 hours were horrid, people. There were no gas stations open, much of the time we drove at less than 25 mph, and at one rest stop a large and red-faced man demanded we recharge his car battery. We did.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rsameer/2168781842/

After having escaped this lunatic, we limped on northwards and prayed ourselves to the outskirts of Corvallis. And then - the poor exhausted car finally sputtered to a stop. Alas! But rescue came in the form of my big brother and a very beautiful, very full Gas Can. Hurray! 

But after it was all over and we had told our tale over dinner, we all made a firm and lifelong determination:

Never drive on a Sunday during an Oil Embargo.

See you along the way!

the SconeLady

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dakiraun/5828670440/">Dakiraun</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">cc</a>

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rsameer/2168781842/">bedharak</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/">cc</a>