Live Long and Prosper

I received another one of those "do you remember the time?" type of e-mail messages. The type that recounts consumer products and lore from "the good old days."

The e-mail reminisces about artifacts like Burma Shave, green stamps, television sets with channel one on the dial, phone numbers with word prefixes like "Ancestor 4-1801," and the day they invented the chimney. Sooner or later, the price of gas comes up. That's when our elders, still able to remember these things after so many eons, lay a hand on their chest, roll their eyes, and say, as though they had been pinched, "Oooh! Twenty-Five cents!" They recall how far they could go, in their Buicks and their Oldsmobiles, and the many places they could see, all because gas was so cheap. As the men say this, they look up to the ceiling, as if the prices might still exist, somewhere up in the firmament.

Change can be tough, and change can be a little frightening, but we at The Alley have a message of assurance for those who have lived, and continue to live, a very long life.

I don't care if gas was twenty-five cents a gallon. Today, in the Twenty-First Century, it is now over three dollars a gallon and rising. Get over it. Get on with your life. Abraham dealt with the changes, as did Moses and Methuselah, so don't expect any special treatment.

Have a nice day.