As Price at Pump Falls, Drivers Filled With Joy; Gasoline Is Better Bargain Now Than in '60s
Southern Californians seem happier than ever these days, and it has nothing to do with the bright sunshine that has replaced this winter's miserable rains. It is even more important than that: They can fill their beloved cars with gasoline for under $1 a gallon.</br></br>The same is true across the country, including the Washington area, where motorists are pulling up to the pumps and happily rediscovering the good old days as the price of gasoline, adjusted for inflation, is selling for less than the long-forgotten 25 cents a gallon it used to fetch in the early 1960s.</br></br>But here in the biggest gasoline market in the nation, with notoriously long commutes over a vast freeway network, cheaper gasoline is particularly good news. "I haven't seen these prices since cigarettes were 98 cents a pack," exulted Marcus Ware. Ware, 30, commutes 150 miles a day round trip from the inland desert suburb of Lancaster to his job at a credit card company here. He figures the weekly gasoline bill for his two cars has dropped from $150 to $85.</br></br>Coley Sohn, a 28-year-old professional dog walker from Venice, said: "My friends make fun of me, but I really get excited when I see 91 cents a gallon. I feel like I have to pull over and fill up. I'm very superstitious, so I feel like if the gas prices are good, then everything will be good."</br></br>And Nels Israelson, 39, an ecologically conscious photographer who regularly escapes to his cabin near Mount Baldy, in San Bernardino County, was filling up his mud-splattered Land Rover while complaining what lower gasoline prices might mean for the environment.