Newspaper Page Text
6C
Finding your own ‘bubblin’ crude’
A decade ago, I cruised up to
my favorite convenience store
and purchased the following for
$60: a full tank of gas ($23), a
Dr. Pepper ($1.10), a bag of
Funyuns ($1), a large pack of
gum ($1.15), a lottery ticket
($1), five Tootsie pops (a total of
75 cents), an oversized foam
cowboy hat ($20), and a red
T-shirt with white lettering ($23)
that said “Fat People Are Harder
to Kidnap.”
Yesterday, 1 cruised up to the
same convenience store and pur¬
chased the following for $60: A
full tank of gas.
No drink. No eats. No chance
at being a millionaire. No big
foamy hat.
At this writing, the average
cost for a gallon of regular gas¬
oline in these United States is
$3.25 a gallon. That’s a 225
percent increase from 10 years
ago. Our salaries haven’t quite
kept up with the 225 percent
pace.
And it doesn’t look to get
better any time soon.
Forecasters are predicting
average gas prices to get up to
$4.60 a gallon by May of this
year. That could change, of
course, depending on a number
of factors, chiefly who the oil
barons want to be the next
president.
What are we non-oil barons to
Getting through tough times with prayer
It’s just funny, 1 guess,
the way 1 get caught up
in the lives of other peo¬
ple, folks 1 don’t even
know. Yet I share their
sorrow or rejoice with
their successes. And they
feel like friends, though
most of them I have
never met and suppose 1
never will.
A woman sent me an
e-mail the other day. 1
didn’t recognize her
name at all. The message
was simple, “Thank you
for helping my aunt dur¬
ing this sad time since
she lost my uncle.”
I didn’t know to whom
she was referring. It
seems there are so many
sweet women who read
this column or take my
weekly newsletter, and
they feel that since 1
share my triumphs and
tribulations that we are
friends.
And, we are, you
know. We’re friends.
We’re bound by similar
i W
1 m m
Ask a Question or Get Answers
from Any of Our Local Experts A A
24/7 at... forsythnews •com
Todd Burkhalter Apollon Constantinides t M !
Catalyst Wealth Lakeside Pharmacy
Wealth Management Pharmacist
Michael Excalibur Real Estate Home Nelson, Management, gri, mpm LLC I Toni Mortgage Buford Flory Financial Finance Services K
Maren Bear, M.D., f.a.a.p. i Dawn C. Cvetkovic, % I i r
Johns Creek Pediatrics L.Ac., Dipl.Ac.
Pediatrist Camming Acupuncture Jay Ryerse
Acupuncture JTECH Networks, LLC
n Why Not Become An Expert? Computers & Technology
Debra Rickies Your Your Name
Attorney at Law Photo Your Business Name Call 770-205-8963 for more
Here! Your Expertise Field info on how yau can become
one of our experts.
| FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS j fbrsythncwx.com
LEN ROBBINS
Columnist
do? Here are some suggestions 1
gleaned from “experts" in some
national magazines. They rec¬
ommend:
• Driving less.
Yeah, right.
• Driving slower.
They claim you can save an
estimated 20 percent of your
precious gas by driving 50 mph
rather than 70 mph. What they
didn’t tell you was that you also
get where you're going 20 per¬
cent slower.
• Eat out less.
But what am 1 supposed to do
when I’m hungry?
• Carpool or use public trans¬
portation.
In Homerville, that means
hitchhiking.
• Cut down on expenses you
don’t necessarily need.
They propose eliminating any
golf or hunting club member¬
ships (jeez, or cable television.
gas isn’t extinct. It’s
merely expensive.
I’m sure these “experts” mean
well, but I think their advice is a
tad unrealistic. I mean, why
R0NDARICH
Columnist
experiences and hearts
that hurt the same no
matter who you are.
Southerner, Yankee, cow¬
boy, redneck, socialite.
People write and ask me
to pray for them because
they know that 1 believe
mightily in the power of
prayer.
1 have prayed for jobs
for those who lost theirs;
prayed for wayward sons
and rebellious daughters;
prayed for rain so the
crops would grow and
someone wouldn’t lose
the family farm; prayed
for shelter for many
when tornados hit their
towns; prayed for men
shrouded in loneliness
when their wives quit
mm
Its
SSI
•.-***■»
For the Forsyth County News
should we do something drastic
like change our lifestyle? My
suggestion will allow us to keep
our humble customs and still
afford to drive as fast and as
much as we desire. My plan is
rather simple, and has the added
bonus of allowing you to shoot a
gun. It’s:
• Find your own oil.
You remember television’s
“Beverly Hillbillies,’’ right?
Jed Clampett was “a poor
mountaineer, barely kept his
'People write and ask me to pray
for them because they know that I
believe mightily in the power of
prayer.'
them; prayed many times
for one woman who
divorced after 50 years,
and it seems I pray end¬
lessly for women whose
precious husbands just
up and die on them.
Widow women, country
folk like to say.
“1 don’t even know you
so it seems strange to ask
you to pray for me,” the
e-mails often begin. “But
1 can tell you’re a woman
of faith and I need
prayer.”
No matter what I’m
doing, when an e-mail
like that arrives, 1 stop,
drop my head and pray.
It doesn’t stop there for
days, weeks and some¬
family fed.’’ Just like us. “Then
one day he was shootin’ at some
food, and up through the ground
came a bubblin' crude. Oil that
is, black gold. Texas tea.”
Like all of life’s pesky riddles,
the answer is right there in front
of us on TV. Instead of relying
on the Saudis to provide our oil,
we need to go find it ourselves.
Jed simply went around his yard
shooting for critters and hit
“bubblin' crude.” Next thing
you know, oT Jed’s a million¬
times months afterwards,
I’ll think of that request
when I’m running, mop¬
ping the floor or pulling
weeds and I’ll pray
again.
1 believe — as simple
and as humble as those
small prayers are — that
they help. I remember
once a man w ho was
loaded down with sor¬
row. Death had claimed a
son and his wife was on
the verge of going crazy
from the grief.
“Preacher,” he said to
my daddy. "There ain’t
nothin’ on this earth you
can do to help me, but if
you could find your way
clear to pray for me. I’d
SUNDAY, JANUARY 29,2012
aire. Sounds pretty good to me.
Here’s what to do: Get a gun.
Walk around your yard, shoot¬
ing at the ground. Wait for black
gold.
It only took about four min¬
utes of shooting for me to find
bubblin’ crude. Unfortunately, it
was my sewer line.
And indeed, it was bubblin’
and crude.
Len Robbins is the publisher of
the Clinch County News.
be much obliged. I stand
in need of your prayers.”
Daddy’s eyes watered
and he clasped tightly the
man's hand. “You can
count on it. 1 promise
you that.”
Daddy was always real
good about calling up
and checking on people
like that. Just to see if
they needed anything and
to reassure them that he
was praying. “Just hold
tight to the hand of the
Lord," he’d oft say.
“He’ll see you through.”
So, now I find myself
checking in w ith the
folks who have asked me
to pray. Like the woman
in Tennessee whose hus¬
band was killed in a farm
accident or the man in
Mississippi who lost a
fully-paid-for house to a
tornado but had no insur¬
ance to replace it.
1 once prayed a solid
year for a woman to find
a job after she w as laid
off from hers. I’ve never
met her, but it makes no
difference. When some¬
one’s in need, you do
what you can.
I don’t believe I’ve
ever seen such tough
times. I can’t recall
another era of my life
when despair seemed to
rain so freely on so
many.
For the past few
decades, we’ve all pretty
much been self-absorbed,
but that time is at an end.
If we’re all going to
make it through, we’re
gonna have to help each
other.
And that includes pray¬
ing for those whose faces
we have never seen.
Ronda Rich is the best¬
selling author of "What
Southern Women Know
(That Every Woman
Should).” Visit www.rond
arich.com to sign up for
her free weekly newslet¬
ter.