Downtown Knoxville & Everything West | This "Tankfull" of Necessity

the magazine

business spotlight

This "Tankfull" of Necessity

Close Ad

This "Tankfull" of Necessity

(0 votes)

Written by Tom Irmen

Friday, 01 August 2008

As difficult as it may be to believe, the inspiration for this article came after putting $72.19 of regular unleaded gasoline into Judy's automobile. In the few minutes it took to fill up, I began contemplating the tremendous impact that skyrocketing fuel prices had imposed on each of us. While some of us shrug our shoulders wishing we could once again pay less than a dollar a gallon not uncommon to us a decade ago, we elect to fill up, perhaps foregoing an evening out each week.

There are others, we are led to believe, however, that cannot simply forego any evening out that was likely never part of their normal routines to begin with. Instead, we are told they face much more difficult choices.

Few of us ever anticipated that gasoline would exceed $3 a gallon and now we are left wondering if it can top $5.

I am utterly amazed at the apparent resiliency of our nation and more importantly its people to absorb the economic impact of our country's latest crisis. I have even wondered if we will even be talking about what now appears to be this, our newest insurmountable challenge a year from now.

At 58 years of age, I have experienced multiple insurmountable challenges that appeared to have rocked our nation to its very core and seemed to threaten its very existence. The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Kennedy Assassination, The Vietnam War, the gas lines of the 70's, double-digit mortgage rates and a disgraced president forced to leave the oval office each seemed to challenge the very existence of our democracy, and yet this nation's incredibly resilient people, who so often appear ready to go to war with each other, overcome these crises, seemingly stronger and more resilient than before.

These tests of our American spirit are nothing new. As a child I remember, when after all of the adults had left the kitchen to watch Gunsmoke on America's latest contribution to mankind, the black and white television, Grandma Irmen, at the urging of many of her grandchildren, would take an old cigar box from out of the pantry and empty its contents onto the oil cloth draped kitchen table.

At such an early age I failed to recognize what an extraordinary woman my grandmother was. But like so many other grandmothers of that era, she endured the hardships of the Great Depression and the many years that were to follow as she raised eight children in a three bedroom apartment on the north side of Chicago.

Inside that cigar box was much of my grandmother's life. It contained worn pieces of paper, wooden tokens and other memorabilia that made little sense to me at the time. I do remember that these cards and tokens were ration coupons used to purchase eggs, butter and meat in quantities far too small to feed her family. And yet she and millions of others continued to endure for nearly a decade.

Few memories of the depression remained after the morning of December 7th, 1941 as in just months automobile and tractor factories were turning out thousands of tanks, aircraft and the other tools of war required to defeat a determined enemy. War bonds, Victory Gardens, civil defense drills, scrap salvage drives and Rosie the Riveter were the earmarks of an American populace who knew no Republicans, Democrats or Independents, just Americans joined in a common cause.

For those of us that did not experience December 7th, our Pearl Harbor would await us 60 years later on September 11, 2001. We watched as four planes struck symbols of American greatness and I wondered if there would actually be a tomorrow. But yet these planes only struck symbols and not our great American spirit.

I am utterly amazed at how our nation continues to face these challenges which at the time appear to have no clear solution, and yet we persevere and flourish often while squabbling with each other throughout the oftentimes lengthy process.

I honestly don't know how much a gallon of gasoline will cost a year from now or even if we will be talking about high fuel prices or perhaps some undefined future challenge which is looming undetected on the horizon. One thing I am confident of is that the American spirit will prevail as it has for over 300 years.

I don't know what type of vehicles we'll be driving 5 years from now or what type of alternative fuel sources we'll rely on, but you can bet we will solve this latest crisis, as we have dozens of others which appeared to threaten our very existence, in typical American style with political rhetoric, media sensationalism and predictions of doom and gloom, all of which will be overcome once again by this great, centuries old, American experiment.

Necessity truly has become the mother of invention for our great nation and its incredible people and I cannot even begin to fathom what inventions will result from this "tankfull" of necessity.