# First Oil "Crisis"



## imp (Jul 11, 2015)

Most here are old enough to recall one of the big boondoggles of history, the "Arab Oil Embargo". As that event was looming, unbeknownst to common folk, my wife & I pulled up stakes, and moved from the Chicago area, to Las Vegas. No fool, I, (though that's been disputed), figgered my mechanical skills could prevail to provide a living out there; I took over an ARCO service station. 1972, Springtime. The ARCO rep, mainly infused my nephew, Dan, and I, with glorious talk of the Alaskan Pipeline finally being in it's stages of construction. He heralded that arrival of Alaskan oil here in the lower 48 as "bathing us in gasoline". 

I signed the lease in June, 1972, then went off to CA for 6 weeks of Dealer Training, during which time my nephew, Dan, would "run" the business back in Vegas. 

Things went OK initially, until about Thanksgiving time, Dan's wife demanded they move back to CA. They did, and I lost my Manager. Month later, a certified letter from ARCO informed me that future deliveries of gasoline would be limited to 40% of the previous year's monthly deliveries. The previous year, my predecessor in the station was preparing to get out, so did not stress sales; consequently, the future looked bleak, indeed! Had I made the first big mistake of my adult life? Well, yes. I terminated the lease per requirements of the agreement, and left the station in March, 1973, jobless in a strange place, though my wife had found a position at the Stardust as a hairdresser. She carried us, until we parted in 1977. 

I earned my degree in Engineering during the interim. Wife's brother, then 25, died on his birthday, Nov. 28, 1975, this after her having lost her parents in a murder-suicide in 1967, when she was 20, we then being married 2 years. Unhinged, she sought to be alone, thus separating us after 12 years. 

The Embargo produced an unprecedented situation nation-wide: long waiting lines to buy gasoline, stations closing early, more than simple inconvenience, in looking back, I am surprised it did not throw our nation into chaos. Surprised, watching the news, our little west-side community in Las Vegas experienced no such difficulty! Back east it was vastly different! Remember it?


My wife & I separated in 1976, my Mother intervened hoping to ease the continuation of my ability to attend classes at UNLV. I completed the Engineering degree requirements late in 1976, my Mother living with me in a small house I had bought. The story even becomes more bizarre after this; I will spare the reader.

Closing, I will tell of President Nixon's request for energy conservation: our home was way out on the west side, much higher than the Strip, and the night lights, the signs, were always an amazing sight from there. The hotels agreed, in principle, to limit energy waste, and shut down their signs at midnight, initially, then in a month or two, 2:00 AM, then 5:00 AM, then, within 6 months all was back to it's bacchanal normal! 

Only in Las Vegas! I loved living there, back then, but today view the place with disdain. Perhaps, I have grown old.....imp


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