The Old Blog in the Desert

“So, do you think you can live with driving only 55 miles an hour from now on?” Dad asked.

“I guess so,” I answered, “Why?”

“Soon it’s gonna be the new law of the land.”

“You mean no more going 60 or 65?”

“Nope.”

“Don’t get it. Why?”

“It’ll save gas and we won’t have anymore more of those gas lines.”

“Driving five-miles slower saves gas?”

“That’s what they say and Tricky Dick’s gonna sign it into law next week, I expect.”

“Really? Is that the president’s job – I mean to make everyone save gas? And your okay with this?”

“Well, it is a matter of National Security,” Dad said, his face deathly serious.

My mind fell back to that rainy day, four-and-a-half years before, as dad helped me deliver newspapers in our newly purchased gold-colored German engineered Opel Cadet. I smiled at having not once read the paper I was launching at neighbor’s porches daily and how I vowed to know every story printed in it before loading my paper bag.

Then I chucked about how neither the president’s signature nor national security had managed to stop me from driving 70-miles-per-hour where ever I could, but that should my folk’s find out…