The year 1973 started out on a bad note, there was a stock market “crash”, which affected all of us in the investment game. Thru out the summer there was an escalation of hostilities in the Mideast, ending in the Arab-Israeli war breaking out in October. The OPEC cartel, the group of oil producing countries, cut back oil exports to all who supported Israel. This of course included the United Sates. Oil prices doubled almost overnight, and shortages, real and imagined, became an everyday occurance. Gas stations closed early because of these shortages, and it was difficult to buy a tank of gas. Of course, no stations were open on the weekend, which curtailed any long distance vacation plans. Finally the government stepped in with a plan to give everyone an equal chance for fuel; the rationing setup called for those with license plates ending with even numbers go on certain days, and those ending with odd numbers go on the other days. But there were still long lines at the pumps, and you still may only be able to buy a few gallons at a time; I was lucky, as the wife was a stay-at-home mother, and could go to gas up during the day (I should mention that she may have been at home, but she ran her own child daycare business).

The Arab-Israeli war only lasted from October 6th to the 26th, but it started the upward oil price trend that has created immense wealth for the oil producing countries.

It is hard to believe that the classic 60’s and 70’s muscle cars that we see today ( and are quite valuable), sat unwanted after the oil shortage crisis. These big motored monsters were virtually worthless, as everyone rushed to buy smaller, more fuel efficient cars. Detroit suddenly became serious about building an “economy car”. Up until this event, their offerings were scant, Ford with the Falcon, and Chevrolet with the Chevy II. Chrysler was already selling their front wheel drive Omni and Horizon, basically a copy of the VW Rabbit. Speaking of VW, their “Bug” had been imported since the mid 50’s, and they had a solid magazine ad campaign which sold millions of these cars. We owned a couple ourselves over the years, it’s the only car I’ve owned that you needed an ice scraper inside to keep the windshield clear on a cold day. The heater / defroster was pretty dismal, especially if you had an older one with rusty heater boxes (which we did!!).

In November we were blessed with our third child, a son. We had lived in North Springfield for a little over a year, and all three of our children would eventually attend the North Springfield Graded School. It was an old fashioned, small school, with a sense of community. We were saddened at it’s closing.