Gas War

So here’s a “Sunday Story” – about gas prices and the “old days”. 

The Bubble

Woo Hoo!! Here in the “Amazon Bubble” of high gas prices, I “scored”.   As I drove by the local United Dairy Farmer, there it was on the price list:  Regular – $2.12!!  Across the street at the Duke and Duchess/BP Station, it was $2.17.  I felt like partying like it was 1999, or at least, 2007! (Sure, we all vaguely remember Covid prices lower, but where was there to go during Covid??).

It’s doubly odd that gas prices are so low in Pataskala.  As I’ve whined about before, we are in the “Amazon Bubble”.  Lined up, seven days a week, are the little blue Amazon vans, filling up on Pataskala gas.  And, if local gas prices really are a product of good old micro-economics, simple supply and demand, then the demand at the gas stations in this “bubble” is always high, and drives prices up.

Normally our local stations around the corner run about $0.30 higher than gas stations just a few miles away.   All those little blue vans, line up right here.  In fact, drive ten miles to the “Flying J” in Kirkersville, even though it’s located on I-70, and you might save $0.40 or even $0.50 a gallon.  So $2.12 meant it was time to line up the cars, and “fill-er-up”. (That’s an old phrase from the era when there were actually gas “attendants”, who filled up your tank, checked the oil, and cleaned the windshields.  Let AI try to do that!!). 

Whiplash

And “score” twice – my UDF loyalty card got me another $0.03 off – $2.09!!

I’m even more sensitive to gas prices than usual this month.  Jenn and I are “working” on recovering a dog in New Concord, a small village in Eastern Ohio. (It boasts of Muskingum University, John Glenn High School, and the boyhood home of Astronaut and Senator John Glenn).  It’s about fifty miles away, and we’ve been “commuting” to a trap there several days a week for almost a month.

So we first hand get to see gas prices rise and fall.  On Thanksgiving morning about 3 am, we paid almost $3.00 a gallon for gas at the local Sheetz Station.  There’s a variety of gas prices between home and New Concord, usually cheaper at the Love’s truck stop in Zanesville than the Love’s just down the street in Etna, Flying J almost always the lowest.  Except for the Fuel Mart in New Concord, the nearest restroom to the trap.  Ninety percent of the time, it’s the cheapest.

But $2.09 a gallon in “downtown” Pataskala.  What’s going on?

Fury III

I’m reminded of when I first got my driver’s license, in 1972 back in Cincinnati.  I was driving a “boat”, the used car I bought from my cousin Brendan for $200.  It was a 1969 Plymouth Fury III, and it was huge, with two giant bench seats; easy to put eight kids in the car.  And, since it was modeled off of the “police special” of the time, it could fly.  It was a great first car, and big enough to protect a novice driver.

Tom Morgan, our neighbor and a Proctor and Gamble engineer, taught me how to replace the head gaskets and generally keep the “Fury” running.  It was a big engine in a big car with a ton of mileage on it.  But it worked for the first few years of my driving career, and served as a  great way to learn “how to turn a wrench”.  

BC Glasses

And gas mileage – well – who cared?  Gas prices were $0.25 a gallon.  And when there were “gas wars”, stations across the street fighting for business, the price might dip down to $0.18 a gallon.  A fill-up cost $5.00.  In fact, gas prices got so low that gas stations were giving stuff away to get your business.  The Marathon Station down on Springfield Pike in Woodlawn, gave away a “BC Glass” (after the BC cartoon) with each fill-up.  When I finally got my first apartment in 1978, almost all of my glassware had the characters from “BC” on them.

So is there a gas war going on here in Pataskala?  Maybe just on the corner of Broad and Vine.  Less than a mile away at Kroger, gas is still $2.47.  But don’t worry, Jenn and I will get one more chance to get cheap gas before the “war” ends.  We got home from New Concord at 3 am last night, and we’re headed back there tonight.  Sammy (that’s the dog) has to eat sometime – hopefully somewhere in the dark of  New Concord tonight in our specially designed panel trap.  So we’ll need to fill-er-up again, at least one more time.

The Sunday Story Series

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2025

Author: Marty Dahlman

I'm Marty Dahlman. After forty years of teaching and coaching track and cross country, I've finally retired!!! I've also spent a lot of time in politics, working campaigns from local school elections to Presidential campaigns.