Running on Fumes

Late yesterday afternoon, as I was racing up island from the theater to the school, I noticed it was nearly 4:30 (meaning I was half an hour late already for the meeting of the school technology committee meeting, which I was attending)--and I noticed my truck's gas gauge indicated I had zero gas.

I was, as is so often the case and in so many ways, running on fumes.

I slowed down (good for truck, environment, and bystanders anyway). It was snowing large flakes, and was bitterly cold. I really didn't want to have to walk a mile or more when I ran out of gas.

If you're like me, you might remember slowing down is a major strategy in energy conservation. Again, I'm not talking about personal, human energy here -- although I might as well be. I'm talking about our use of gasoline, and our production of driving's evil byproduct, atmosphere-warming CO2. But for those of us who got our licenses in the 1970s, pre SUVs; and then had to wait in line to buy gas, odd-numbered and even-numbered days based on our plates; and hear the cries of outrage in Nebraska as the federal speed limit was set at 55 throughout the country -- we might remember that slowing down is a part of conserving energy.

So I coasted down the last incline and into the twins' Mill Pond Service. Lights were on but no one appeared and I could easily imagine them closing at 4 p.m., since many island businesses do. But when I got out and poked my head into the garage itself, one of the twins appeared.

"I'm running on fumes," I told him. "Glad you're still open."

He came out and began filling the tank (we're happily not self serve or automated here on the island). "You know where that phrase comes from?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Nope," I said, thinking I was about to hear a yarn about a epochal empty tank.

"Back in the 1960s," he began, "when folks started getting really interested in the environment, some folks down at MIT began to get interested in how far you could really get on one gallon of gas."

Now I'm sitting with my head hanging out the driver's window, listening.

"So they took a 1955 Chevy, and they tinknered with the carburetor," he continued. "they had a closed track to run this test on. You know how you can see the fumes coming off gas when you leave it sitting in the sun?"

I nodded.

"Well, if you heat the gas up, you get these heavy fumes. So heavy you can run on them. So then they shaved the tires down, practically to points in the middle, so only one inch or so was in contact with the ground."

Seeing this tippy old Chevy in my mind, I begin thinking maybe this is a tall tale after all.

"Then they started her up. They got her up to about 35 mph and then just sent her around the track with this one gallon of gas and its fumes . . . and she kept going for over 300 miles."

My jaw dropped, and he laughed. "It's true," he said. "There's another story about a guy, about the same time, bought a new DeSoto and drove all the way from Las Vegas to Los Angeles without using hardly any gas. When he got there he went into a DeSoto dealership and asked what was going on. They looked under the hood and said, um, you got a model with our new, experimental carburetor on it. Then they took it from him and replaced it with the old model, which used LOTS of gas.

"Course now the oil and car companies own all them patents, and you're never going to see them in a car," he concluded, grinning. "That was back when Greenpeace and all those other environmental organizations got started up. But I've got the knowledge to do it myself, and with gas prices going the way they are I might fix up my own."

I told him I'd be by to have my own carburetor operated on. Who wouldn't want to, if we could, run on fumes? And who doesn't believe, after all, that it is really possible; although not to the benefit of those making the policy and the $$.

Slow down. Save yourself a gallon of gas, and more.