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Ghost town
Sunday, 4:59 pm
By Kate
Apr
23
2006
While we were out running some errands yesterday afternoon, I handed my camera to the lad and asked him to take pics of the gas station signs along our route. It took a couple of shots for him to figure out how to work it. The first photo of the Sunoco gas station sign was his first attempt. There were so few cars out yesterday that I was able to stop in the middle of the street so he could snap the picture through the windshield. In the middle of a Saturday afternoon. There wasn’t a car behind me for as far as I could see.
Next stop on the street was the Mobil station. It’s the most well-kept station in town, with a small convenience store attached. I pulled into the parking lot and the lad snapped the pic through my driver’s side window. The truck in the picture was the only vehicle at the station.
Across the street is the Shell station. Here I was also able to slow down to a stop. No cars coming in either direction. And the White Hen Pantry convenience store on the corner had only two cars in the parking lot—one was the employee’s car. The place is usually mobbed.
So it was Earth Day yesterday and we didn’t really do anything special to observe it other than observe the lack of traffic out on the streets. As the photos show, the price of gasoline is high, but not nearly as high as in other places I’ve heard about this week. I wonder what other towns looked like this weekend. Usually, on a Saturday, we’re packed with people on the roads and in the parking lots. Ordinarily people are running the errands they can’t do during the work week, grocery shopping, or just going someplace. Not yesterday. We looked like a ghost town. The grocery store parking lot wasn’t even a third filled. And there wasn’t a single customer at the Dunkin Donuts store or drive-up. The weather wasn’t great, but it wasn’t raining or unpleasant. People were just staying home. There was a lot of money not being spent yesterday and a lot of money being saved. Probably to put into the gas tanks later this week. The unintended consequence of high gas prices seems to be giving our little spot on the earth a break for a few days. Our local economy? Probably not a very good weekend.