Word: gas
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Just a week or two earlier, the gas lines had somehow seemed temporary. It was an irritating inconvenience to spend hours waiting for what used to be taken for granted, but somebody would eventually fix things. More gas would appear, as it had before, and all would be well. Last week it became clear that nobody was fixing things very fast. The lines got longer, and the prices went...
...radios or cassettes, sometimes watched a small TV set installed in their cars. Some chatted with other motorists or bought food and drink from enterprising kids working the lines. But growing anger and frustration all too often erupted in name calling, fistfights, occasional stabbings and shootings. While a gas-station owner in Freemansburg, Pa., rushed to help his bleeding wife, who had been accidentally struck by a car waiting in line, other motorists filled up their tanks and drove off without paying. In Levittown, Pa., in an outbreak originally caused by truckers demonstrating against high diesel fuel prices, some...
Like the horse rustlers of an earlier era, gas thieves were on the prowl. Usually they siphoned off gas; occasionally they took the whole car. Some resorted to ingenious ruses. Two men were arrested in Miami after police discovered that a floor board had been cut out of their dilapidated van. Underneath was $5,000 worth of equipment, including intake hoses, battery-operated pumps and a 350-gal. storage tank. Apparently the pair would drive into a station, casually park over an unlocked underground tank and help themselves. On a smaller scale, thieves faced another kind of retribution...
...major element in the public anger was the fact that many gas stations have taken to closing on weekends, and for much of the week as well. These unscheduled and unpredictable closings (involving as many as 90% of stations in the New York City area) added considerably to drivers' anxiety about getting gas, and therefore to the wasteful practice of tank-topping-buying a few gallons to get a full tank. They also added to drivers' suspicion that the industry was manipulating them, their cars and their pocketbooks...
...combat the closings, many states have issued orders to stations to stay open on either Saturday or Sunday, and Gulf Oil Corp. instructed 350 of its 800 company-owned stations to provide gas in 26 states east of the Rockies on Sundays starting July 1. But most owners are reluctant to obey. After they have used up their gas allocation, they say, they see no need to stick around. Besides, if they stay open on weekends, they will be swamped with customers and quickly sell out their allocation, leaving none for regular customers during the week. More repair work also...