Used Car Lot

35 Mile Long Used Car Lot
Current mood: disgusted
Category: Life

I guess it's yet another sign of the times. You know, one of those signs that the Bush Administration ignores? You know, like when they put out economic statistics that EXCLUDE the price of fuel and food?

In the past couple of weeks I've had occasion to do the 35 mile drive between my home in Paris and my cottage in Gray, Maine quite a few times. The road between these two points is state route 26. I could not help but notice that this stretch of highway has become one long used car lot. There must be more than a dozen cars for sale along this route - all parked out on the road with "For Sale" signs plastered on their windows. Last night on my way back from the cottage I stopped to look at a Honda CRV, thinking it might be a good alternative to my gas guzzling Suburban. Lately I've been thinking a lot about buying a cheap used car in the fall to save gas. I figure by then gasoline will be about $6/gallon. The CRV, however, was $6500 - way beyond my budget for a cheap used car.

Just as I've never seen so many foreclosed homes in a single area, I have never seen this many cars for sale by private owners either. I think the reasons are many - the SUVs, big vans, and trucks for sale are probably being exchanged for more efficient vehicles. But how to explain the Honda CRV, or the other small efficient vehicles? It's very possible that for some families a car has to be sacrificed to simply survive, or plan to survive, the coming winter's heating prices, and ever escalating food prices.

The best price we've been able to find for heating fuel for this coming winter is $4.83/gallon for our residence, and $4.89/gallon for our duplex rental property. At those prices, our rental property may not be profitable. Like the Katahdin Paper Mill here in Maine that has recently had to close because the extreme fuel prices have turned an extremely successful plant into a fiscal loser, our apartment building may also cost more to heat than we can possibly recoup in increased rent. Be it large scale or small, the fuel prices are putting people out of business and out of work.

People in Maine are already talking about closing off parts of their homes (we are included in that group), or literally shutting down their homes for the winter and sharing space and heating costs with friends and family.

Where are the protests? Where are the riots? The FRENCH, of all people, are currently staging protests over fuel prices - where are the AMERICANS? What will it take? Will it take the first wave of New Englanders freezing to death in their homes for lack of fuel? The fuel assistance programs can't keep up with the demand. Will it take the massive layoffs as more and more companies can't make ends meet and close? WHAT...WILL...IT...TAKE?????

This is the question that keeps coming to me and for which I have no answer. Just as I don't know exactly where the limit is for Americans as we are increasingly robbed of our civil liberties - where is the breaking point? At what point is Revolution inevitable?

This is a question that throughout history has been difficult to answer. Even in hindsight historians argue over what that "last straw" actually was before the outbreak of a revolution. I don't have the answer. I don't know what the last straw will be. But I believe it's coming. The decision for me, and for you, is whether to be a part of it, or whether to lie by complacently while greed, corruption, and power plays (including the intentional squelching by our gov't and the oil interests of the alternative fuel industry) rob us of our quality of life.

Used cars will continue to pepper the 35 mile route between Paris and Gray here in rural Maine. I no longer see them as just cars. I see them as a sign of a revolution in the making.