Gasoline prices up again

It happened again today, the same as it does every Thursday, it seems. Gasoline prices jumped more than 10 cents a gallon at most convenience stores in the Tri-State. I was driving around the area working on an editorial for Sunday and the prices caught my eye. They were $2.699 a gallon in Huntington and $2.759 in Ironton and in Catlettsburg, Ky. I happened upon a station in Kenova and bought some at $2.589 before the price went up.

I asked the clerk behind the counter if her store took fifty-dolllar bills. She said they had to, even if some places don't. Some cars need $50 or more to fill up, she said.

Anyway, we can expect prices to keep going up. You know, the price of crude oil, the shortage of ethanol, the changover to summer formulas -- all the usual suspects. Industry experts will say prices go up because inventories are either up or down. Either way inventories go, prices go up, it seems.

The next thing to wait for is Memorial Day weekend, when the summer driving season kicks off.

So far, no one I know says fuel prices have caused them to change their driving habits. There's a point at which prices will cause some pain and people will make significant changes in their driving habits, we we apparently are nowhere near that yet.

Teen drinking

     Teen drinking is the subject of three town hall meetings in the area this week. One was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon at Marshall University. One was scheduled for Tuesday evening at Spring Valley High School. The final one is scheduled for Thursday evening in Culloden.
     Teen drinking is nothing new, but it’s getting more attention lately. According to a Marshall spokesman, the meetings were organized, in part, because of United States Surgeon General Richard Carmona’s recent declaration that underage drinking “has reached epidemic proportions.” He has issued a call to action and is seeking comments on the problem of underage drinking.
     Is teen drinking that big of a problem here in this area? If so, how do we deal with it?
     As far as I know, none of my three children – ranging from almost 14 to 6 1/2 –  has ever seen a drunk person. For starters, I don’t drink. Alcohol has done nothing good for anyone in my family, and it has done much harm, so I tend to stay away from it. Having seen a lot of drunks in the small town where I grew up, becoming intoxicated has never appealed to me.
     It can’t be denied that drinking appeals to young people. Otherwise there wouldn’t be so many bars and convenience stores within a mile of the Marshall campus. Teens will be tempted to drink and to drink to excess. So what, if anything, do we do about it?