Newfoundland & Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador Opinion

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BOB WAKEHAM: NL won't be rich enough to ignore rising gas prices thanks to Bay du Nord promise

Plenty of NL premiers have promised prosperity with oil announcements, and premier's Bay du Nord is just the latest, says Bob Wakeham

Over the years, I’ve paid little, if any, attention to the price of gasoline, even as I’ve spent much of my adult life behind the wheel of gas-guzzling, four-wheel-drive trucks.

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By the time I had the kind of well-paying jobs that could afford those expensive pickups, I could easily pay whatever the cost of gas happened to be at the time; the price of a gallon or litre was irrelevant, as elitist as that might sound.

But, to be quite honest, even when I didn’t have a pot to piss in and owned a series of pieces of junk set on four dangerously bald tires, sometimes bought for $90 in a tavern from a fellow barfly anxious for a few quick bucks to continue his bender, I still had no concept of the fluctuation in gas prices.

My simplistic attitude was to pour a few dollars worth of gas in the tank and be on my merry, irresponsible way, hoping the cops wouldn’t haul me in for driving a vehicle that had no inspection sticker (a requirement back then), or for driving a car that had no business to be on the road in the first place, and belonged, instead, in the nearest vehicular-crushing dump.

The bottom line? Whether existing just a shade above church mouse poor in my early adult years (a status aided big time by a daily consumption of a minimum of a dozen beer and the inhaling of two and a half packs of cigarettes) or subsequently living a comfortable life with a decent income (and having forsaken the beer and smokes), I never, ever took time to check the price of gas as I filled the tank of whatever vehicle I happened to own.

Opening the door: Bay du Nord marks........

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