The Gas Pump Debate

 It’s been a wonderful Saturday morning here in Southern Oklahoma. I was driving into Durant to give my daughter a ride for groceries, and I noticed my gas gauge getting close to the bottom, so I pulled into the line of pumps at the E-Z Mart on Washington Street to fill up. 

The sun was shining on the pump screen, so I goofed it the first time and had to start over to get my card to read properly. I finally got the nozzle in the tank filler and was about half filled when a small blue car pulled up on the other side of the pump.

I didn’t even look up until I heard somebody say,”I’ve got a question for you!”

The older fellow who was driving had his window down, and he was the one hollering at me. I’m not used to strangers hollering at me in the pump line, so my guard was up immediately. 

I said, “I haven’t lived here long, but I’ll try to answer your question.”

He wasn’t asking for directions. He asked, “If you had two friends, and your wife was fooling around, and one of them told you about her, and the other didn’t so as not to make you feel bad, which one is your friend?”

Well, that was a surprise! A pleasant one, I have to say. There are so few people left who actually like to start a great debate. 

I have some Facebook friends who start posts with “I don’t want anybody to argue with me, but I’m going to post this anyway!” Such comments betray their lack of confidence in their beliefs. 

Just to see how fervent this guy was, I answered, “Sometimes it’s good to be a widower!”

“No, I’m serious,” he said. “Which one would be your true friend - the one who told you, even knowing you might get mad, or the one who didn’t tell you just to keep the peace?”

“Since you insist,” I said, “I would take the first guy as my friend, since I value truth above all, but I wouldn’t get mad.”

“You’re not like most people I know, “ he said.

“Thank you. I try hard not to be like most people.”

He smiled and nodded his head. He realized I had given him permission to continue the discussion without making me mad.

We were two of a kind, in a random meeting at a gas pump, in deep Oklahoma. I don’t know if he invites Mormon missionaries into the house for talks, or discusses the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses, but I do. Life is so much easier when you don’t mind listening to other views, comparing other beliefs, and increasing mutual understanding.

“Well, what do you think of the situation in this country today?” he asked.

Oh, it’s not religion, it’s politics. Great! Game on!

“I’m really disappointed and discouraged. I fought hard for Bernie Sanders, but the Democratic machine ran him over, and anybody else that wanted to see real change happen.”

I could see his mind working, trying to find a way to insert Donald Trump into the debate, I think. I may be wrong, though. I didn’t give him much room to maneuver.

He said,”Somebody once told me that the people aren’t in enough pain yet - that when enough people are desperate enough, they will make change.”

“I think you are exactly right. But I am beginning to see the pain increasing exponentially, due to this pandemic. Millions out of work, lost their medical coverage, about to be evicted from their homes.” 

“What kind of change do you see coming?” he asked.

I looked at him and said, “I don’t know how old you are, but you look to be about my age. If so, you remember living when Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal still applied in this country.”

“Whoa, that was way back in the Fifties!”  he exclaimed. “I remember taxes being awful high back then. income tax was 30 or 35 percent, wasn’t it?”

“Not even close,” I said. “Top tax rate under Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower was over 90 percent. Nobody was allowed to be a billionaire. That was considered evidence that you were robbing somebody - your employees, your customers, your competitors. Companies actually vied to be the best employer, with the best wages, and the best benefits in the land. Those were bragging rights.”

“I don’t remember it that way. We were pretty poor back then.”

“So was I. My father abandoned us when I was just eleven and my mother raised us three boys by herself, with help from family and church friends. But I have since studied a lot of history - read a lot of books - and I remembered when the government put thousands of GIs through college for free, built many thousands of new schools to educate the baby boomers, built a country wide network of high speed freeways, and sent men to the moon and back.” 

“So what going to happen now?” He was listening intently, and seriously seemed to want to know my opinion. That’s all, just my opinion.

“I think it is 1932 all over again,” I said. "Either we will become a Fascist country, where the rich corporations control the government and force us to do their will, or we will turn to Socialism again, where the government is run by the people, to benefit the people. Bernie was the only one who offered the latter, so I don’t have much hope right now.”

Another car pulled up behind him, waiting for the pump there. I said, “ That guy wants your pump, I think. I’ve enjoyed talking with you.”

“I’ve enjoyed it myself, Guess I better move on, Bye!”

“Have a great day” I yelled as he left. I squeezed the pump handle again and topped off the tank.

After he left it occurred to me that he didn’t call me a Libtard, or an idiot, or a Commie. And I hadn’t called him any disparaging names, either. There should be millions of discussions all over this land like this, and maybe we could figure this thing out, without going to revolution or civil war.

Wouldn’t that be great? But I don’t have much hope. There are so few people who relish a real debate on the issues. Wish I had gotten his name.

I think I’ll go out on the porch and take a nap.