Filled up my car Wednesday, first time since January 19. $31.95 for 8.5 gallons of regular, $3.759 a gulp. With gasoline prices reaching intolerable peaks, more than ever I am trying to limit my driving to less than 40 miles a day, the battery-powered range of my 2022 plug-in hybrid Ford Escape.
I’m averaging about 100 miles per gallon equivalent, keeping my gas consumption generally limited to times when I travel by highway to New York City, Boston, Rockland County, the metro area airports or into Manhattan to see a play.
Gilda and I have been happy early adopters of energy-saving technologies. Her car is a 2013 Ford C-Max hybrid that averages a little more than 40 miles per gallon.
We put solar panels on our roof 11 years ago, cutting about 40% of our annual Con Ed electricity usage. We upgraded attic insulation several years ago to save on home heating oil.
Our environmental concerns have been transmitted into the next generation. Our son Dan has a full electric car (not a Tesla) on order, delivery expected around June. Maybe the war with Iran will have ended by then, resulting in declining gas prices. No matter. Saving the planet is a long term project, generation to generation.
Meanwhile, though the Big 3 American car companies have pulled back on their commitment to electric vehicles in favor of gas guzzling trucks and SUVs, pain at the pump has more drivers exploring the buck-saving impact of battery power (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/opinion/electric-vehicles-solar-gas-prices.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share).
Dinner Time: We ate dinner Thursday night at 7, a quarter hour past the time a preponderance of diners the world over sit down for their final meal of the day, according to Tasteofhome.com. Gilda strives to finish cooking around 6:30, a carryover from pre-VCR time when our kids were young. We’d watch the evening national news on CBS over dinner.
No doubt some of you might think exposing young minds to death and destruction, plus politics, was not conducive to proper consumption and digestion. We thought otherwise. We valued the educational benefit of sharing important news of the day. As Gilda was the research coordinator of infection diseases at Westchester County Medical Center during their formative teen years in the 1990s, our kids’ dinnertimes also included discussions about her work on HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis and Lyme Disease.
Gilda and I still watch the CBS Evening News over dinner. I’m not a big fan, any fan really, of Tony Dokoupil as the anchor, but he is getting better, though he tries too hard to find humor in each broadcast segment. We’ve sampled newscasts on NBC and ABC, but they’re no better, to our tastes. So we stick with CBS despite the turmoil at the network and the departure, forced and voluntary, under news chief Bari Weiss, of correspondents we trust and respect.
Our breaking point, I believe, would be if she compromises two of our most favored newscasts—CBS News Sunday Morning and 60 Minutes.
Flooding in Paradise: Scenes of recent sustained flooding in Oahu and Maui evoked memories of our two trips to Hawaii.
In 1993, Gilda and I attended the annual conference of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores. Why? Because it was being held in Maui and we’d never been to Hawaii.
The annual NACDS meeting had a reputation for lavish programs, from guest speakers to cocktail receptions to entertainment. President of NACDS was Ron Ziegler, Richard Nixon’s former press secretary. He used his political influence to bring heavyweight speakers to appear before the heads of retail companies like CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreen, and their suppliers like Revlon, Johnson & Johnson, Lever Bros. The year we attended keynote speakers included former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto and William Safire, then a New York Times columnist after being a speechwriter for Nixon.
Liza Minnelli performed at the closing banquet. Bob Hope—a not so spry 90-year-old with jokes at least as old as he was—came to Maui to appear at a private gala hosted by one of the beauty care vendors (Gilda and I snuck in).
The most memorable parts of our trip were an outdoor Passover service overlooking the Pacific Ocean and a trip to Hāna.
Many of the NACDS attendees were Jewish. The conference overlapped the closing days of Passover. Few, I imagine, adhered to the stringent Passover diet that prohibited anything made of leavened grain (I also can report that never before and not since have I seen as much shrimp cocktail boats proffered at daily cocktail receptions).
But I digress. The last day of Passover is when Yizkor, the memorial prayer for deceased relatives, is recited. Even in Maui, executives recalling departed family members filled the some 100 white lawn chairs placed along a sloping hillside.
Later that day, Gilda and I went with Marianne, one of my staff who succeeded me as editor of Chain Store Age, on the Road to Hāna, renowned for spectacular waterfalls along the 52 mile highway. We also planned to go beyond Hāna to visit the gravesite of Charles Lindbergh. The climb to Hāna passes through tropical rainforest. It’s mostly a switchback single-lane road, with some 620 curves. Without traffic it takes almost three hours to get to Hāna.
Our trip turned out to be an excursion to hell and back. On the way up the mountain we got stuck behind slow moving cars we could not pass because of the numerous curves. Maui had been suffering from a drought. Ergo, there were no waterfalls to behold. There also were no restaurants along the way, no rest stops to relieve ourselves. We finally arrived in Hāna a few minutes after 2 pm. We had hoped to eat lunch in the only sit-down restaurant in Hāna, but discovered it closed sharply at 2. The only open food shop was a greasy spoon shack we reluctantly patronized.
We had to get back to our hotel for the conference evening event (Liza Minnelli) so we had to forego visiting Lindbergh’s grave. On the way down the mountain, Gilda and Marianne got car sick from all the sharp turns mixing with our greasy lunch. On numerous occasions they opted out of the car to walk a half mile or so in the mist that was now swooping in off the coast. We didn’t get stuck behind any cars or trucks, but our pace going down was significantly slower than when we went up to Hāna. Happiness was reaching the straightaway at the bottom of the road and opening up the throttle of the Mustang to whisk us back to our hotel.
Our second trip to Hawaii was in 2004 during our daughter’s post-college graduation stay on the north shore of Oahu. The beaches of the north shore attract top level surfers from around the world. Every day in Oahu the temperature was 81-83 degrees with a short rain shower around 4 pm.
The rains of the last week or two have filled the waterfalls along the Road to Hāna and swamped Oahu’s north shore.
Banksy: Perhaps you saw a recent article identifying the identity of Banksy, the secretive British graffiti-street artist whose paintings have sold for more than a million dollars (https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/fine-art/banksy-reveal-art-cost-buyers-b54c109d?st=qLkvx6&reflink=article_gmail_share).
No mind. I’m here to tell you that the first and only “true” Banksy was Arthur David Banks, a journalist of immense talent and proportions whose editorial skills over five decades influenced newspapers and electronic media in Great Britain, Australia and New York. To his fellow journalists on three continents he was known as Banksy.
He was—still is—my dearest friend. Was because Dave passed away February 22, 2022 (https://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2022/02/goodbye-to-most-dearest-of-friends.html).
