A few years ago while prowling around the north shore of Lake Superior on a DIY fishing junket with daughter Sarah we stopped just outside Wawa, Ontario, at a local one-size-fits-all gas station/tackle shop/bait shop/grocery store/restaurant. I pulled next to a fuel pump where the petrol was priced at about $1.40.
“Wow. Gasoline is a lot cheaper here than it is at home,” observed Sarah, who was then in high school and who had recently obtained a long-sought driver’s permit and had suddenly become keenly attentive to fuel prices.
“That’s the price per liter,” I told the stunned youngster. “It’s about $5 for a gallon.”
I’ve forgotten the exchange rate at that time but recall that I poured about $100 worth of fuel into my gas hungry Ford.
A few days ago, driving the same Ford and in the company of the same daughter, we stopped at the local Kroger. I pulled next to a fuel pump where the petrol was priced at $1.27.9. Fortunately the price was per gallon. I applied an earned discount which pushed the cost to about 88 cents, the least I’ve paid in decades.
Sarah, now 29 but who still fishes with an intensity that borders on frightening, said, “Remember that time we were in Canada fishing and gas was $5?”
I did remember.
“I’d like to go back,” she said.
“Me, too.”
“Well, she said with the matter-of-fact optimism that I love in my daughter’s generation, “then let’s go.”
