COFFEE & GASOLINE
The Isolation Blues;
reflections during covid-19
When I’m on a long road trip I gotta have a good coffee plan in place. Since I can’t afford to let my caffeine levels drop too far below my daily norm this requires due diligence. I’m not sure what model vehicle the man pictured above is driving, but if the dash board coffee pot comes standard I’ll take it (though it could be a bit larger). Back in the 1990s my go to plan was “a thermos for the road.” In those days the Truck Stop in Houlton would fill-your-thermos-for-a-dollar if you were a truck driver, but if you got there before 6AM the night shift cashier would give you the deal even if you were driving a pick-up. An early morning fill-up of my trusted Stanley thermos would get me almost to Waterville. As time went on and my coffee standards evolved I started to stop at Starbucks whenever I happened to see one. Of course they had strange Italian lingo for the coffee sizes but that didn’t matter, I’d just say, “Give me the largest, strongest one you’ve got and make it black.” Over time, I guess you could say I got hooked, but I made a deal with myself; once the price of a cup of black coffee cost more than two dollars I’m done. Well, one day I walked in, ordered my cup of coffee and put my two dollars on the counter. The barista just looked at me…that’s when I knew the dreaded day had come. That was years ago now (and the price keeps going up) and I’m still stopping at Starbucks, just not as often. These days when I’m on the road I have my Yeti thermos and Yeti travel mug that keeps me going with coffee I brew at home. I’m still waiting for a vehicle that comes with its own coffee maker…
A similar thing happened with a US gallon of gas back at about the same time. During my lifetime gasoline had always been under a dollar a gallon or a dollar and change. And then one ill-fated morning I drove to our little gas station in downtown Monticello and I saw there was a line at the pumps. The gas station owner was standing by the gas pump with a hand calculator. Gasoline had just hit two dollars in town and the old mechanical pump at the station didn’t have a two on the dollar dial! That was one way to get friendly service with a smile and an explantation. I also remember when the gas stations in Houlton got their first digital roadsigns that had the name of the company and then, under it, the price of gas and diesel in large numbers. With the old signs you had to change the price by standing on top of a ladder and switching the block numbers, which took some effort. You’d think twice before you’d change the price of a gallon of gasoline. With these new signs (especially the first couple of weeks) it was like watching the New York Stock Exchange with the price of gas going up and down several times a day. When I drove into Houlton last week the price of a gallon of gas was $4.04 and still rising. Due to the war in Ukraine, increased demand for petroleum as economies rebound after the pandemic and our continued reliance on fossil fuels, it looks like we’ll be talking about the price of gasoline and watching the numbers on the big digital signs go up and (hopefully) down for weeks to come. Hang in there everyone.
In the woods and on the road,
Dave
March 10, 2022
Great picture Dave! We’re still filling the old Stanley thermos–even for a trip this very day.
On the road to Florida and back over the past month plus, Martha and I, as always, kept a lookout for Dunkin’ Donuts from Massachusetts to Florida. In fact, she has kept a little notebook over the years that includes, among other things, exits where we have found a DD close to the highway. In a pinch, we’ll go to a Starbucks, but their incomprehensible sizes (grande means small????), pastries that just don’t compare to DD’s chocolate creme-filled donut, and supercilious cachet drives us to the working-person’s DD every time. A small cup of hot black is all I want or need and a medium with cream satiates my bride.
Regarding gas, I (think I) recall when gas was 19 cents a gallon in Portland. There were frequent “gas wars” where stations would drop the price to drum up business and the escalation would begin. I think, this Florida return trip, we pumped the last gallon of under $4 gas in New Jersey. When we got to Massachusetts exit 3 on I-84, it was over $4 at the historically low-priced Exxon station. Ouch. While our AWD CR-V has averaged overall 35 MPG in the past 4 years, this might be just the shock I need to go hybrid when it dies.
I have great memories of Dunkin’ Donuts before the days of the drive-thru window. In those days you were lucky to get a seat at the counter (no tables) and hang out with the locals, eat your donut and drink coffee out of that very small ceramic mug. It was the first coffee place I had ever been in that didn’t have free refills! It was also one of the few places that ground their own coffee beans right there so that was a selling point. Of course this was before “no smoking” laws kicked in so the place was pretty smoky too…Ahh, the memories…