Off the Editor’s Desk – 5-29-2013

GAS PRICES

We have been told that gas prices are high here because of some closing for repairs of a couple refineries. There has to be another reason!

We returned Monday afternoon from Little Rock, AR where we attended the high school graduation of our grandson, Austin DeWitt. In last week’s edition we featured a picture of a local station that posted a price of $4.29.9 per gallon of regular gasoline.

As we traveled south along Interstate 35 into Iowa and Missouri the price of fuel was very little less than that above figure. We stopped in southern Missouri to fill at a Kum N Go facility where the posted price was $3.89.9 but E-85 was at $3.09.9 and I filled up with E-85 because it was 80 cents less.

I have used that produce many times before and concluded there should be a price difference of ten to fifteen percent less, because the gas mileage is that much less in my vehicles that can burn E-85.

But in Arkansas, the fill that I got in Little Rick cost just $3.13.9 a gallon for regular gasoline at the local Shell station.

Someone is making a big profit off us poor people in the upper Mid-west and all I can suggest is that we take a day off from driving. Of course that will never happen. Driving in along I-94 from St. Paul, the highway was bumper to bumper going into the Twin Cities from those people spending the Memorial Day weekend in Wisconsin. We appreciate you spending your money in Wisconsin.

Speaking of Memorial Day, because of our travels, this was the first time in forty years that I did not make it to a local cemetery for the program that local Veterans Groups do on Memorial Day and I feel bad about that.

Have a great week.

— Carlton