Household chores: walking to get gas

Self-tutoring about household chores: the tutor reflects and reminisces.

As a kid, I lived in a few small towns in the Maritimes, where most of the “town-dwellers” lived only a couple of blocks from the main street. It wasn’t uncommon for them to walk places.

One place they would walk is to the gas station, to get gas for their lawn mowers. You’d see them on the way, carrying the empty can; ten or twenty minutes later, they’d return. A couple of times a summer, you’d see them on that errand.

I didn’t think much, back then, about why they walked down to get gas rather than driving. However, it made total sense: it kept the gasoline out of the car. Regardless of the reason, people seemed to enjoy the walk to get gas.

Decades later, I was doing the same thing. Walking home from the gas station with gas for the lawn mower, I was stopped by an older man out on his walk.

“That’s for the lawn mower, eh?” he asked.

I nodded; we both smiled.