As a kid, I laughed when Dad told me about the first color television his family owned.  I couldn’t imagine life in black and white.  I’m sure the conversation will come when I tell my daughter about our family's first microwave or the day her mother and I decided to disconnect the land line and went strictly to cell phones.

As the familiar song goes, “For the times they are a changing.”  Could it be that the next big change will take place in our vehicles?  I drive approximately six miles to work each morning, and six miles home again in the evening.  Through the stop-and-go traffic it becomes a 15 minute drive .  Add on running errands, long trips to see family, and drives to church, it’d be safe to say that my family spends well over an hour per day in the car.  Which being interpreted means, we have to put about $40 of gas in the car each week.  You can bet that we, like you, have changed a lot of our driving habbits -- fewer trips and slower speeds.

Yesterday evening’s local news carried a story about hydrogen fueled cars.  Later, a GMC commercial came on.  They stated, as a side note, their part in hydrogen research, but an even bigger statement is made in the background of almost every other frame – the word hydrogen.  It seems hydrogen fuel research has come along way, but maybe not as quickly as some had predicted.  Some said that hydrogen-cars would be in showrooms by 2005.  However, the experts now say that we still have decades before hydrogen fueled vehicles will be able to challenge the gas guzzlers.

Whatever the case, crude oil prices draw closer to an overwhelming $70 per barrel and my bank account takes a major hit with every fill up.  As I drive down the road I am reminded, "The times they are a-changing."  The tune runs threw my head, but the words are slightly changed. 

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you drive
And admit that the price
Has gone way to high
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If money to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start walk'n
Or you'll live in the street
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come drivers, consumers
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the driveway
Go fill up the car
For he that runs dry
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your budget
And rattle your cars
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your cars and SUVs
Lay out the command.
Your old car is
Demanding agin'.
Please get into a new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line at the pump
The curse in the tank
The guage will move
Faster than you think
As the full tank now
Will run out of gas
Crude oil is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the full tank now
Wont forever last
For the times they are a-changin'.