The “new normal” in gasoline prices used to be cause for laughter around our house.
I remember when Mom or Dad would pull up to the service station pump and tell the attendant — yes, they still have attendants in my home state of Oregon — to put a “dollar’s worth of regular” into the tank. That would be about four gallons. Off we went and tooled around for the rest of the day, maybe a bit into the next one.
Those days are gone.
Now comes news that gas prices are declining. They’re at the lowest level since 2010. They’re heading downward into the new year.
It’s not that we should be surprised that gasoline still costs about $3 a gallon in Amarillo, which is a bit lower than the rest of the state. My wife and I just returned from the Metroplex and were surprised to learn that drivers there are paying about 20 cents more per gallon than we are.
We’re all going to welcome the prospect of paying less for gas in the new year — and hopefully beyond.
Automakers are building more fuel-efficient cars, people are buying them (we’re driving a Toyota hybrid and loving the 45 miles per gallon were getting with that little buggy) and domestic energy producers are pulling a lot of oil out of the ground in newly discovered well fields way up yonder near the Canadian border.
I still have to chuckle at the notion that gasoline that dips below 3 bucks a gallon is now considered “cheap.”
My memory of the old days remains too fresh.