Convoy: (n) the protection provided by an escort.

I will offer my one and single lamentation to you at this time:

I do not know what the value is of living so long that you have numerous experiences, delightful stories, and even warnings to share that nobody in the present age wishes to hear—because anything that has happened more than seven years ago is classified with the dinosaurs.

So if you’re a writer, or boldly call yourself an author, you must take into consideration that the present batch of readers have the foresight and vision of Mr. Magoo, who, by the way, they would not be familiar with.

Yet today, when I saw the word convoy, I was reminded of a time in the 1970’s, when our country was experiencing gasoline shortages. You had to actually think about when to purchase fuel, because the next location to get some might be far away.

There were practices of taking the last numbers on your license plate, and if it was an odd digit you could get gas on a certain day, and even numbers on other days.

In the midst of this slight rationing, it was conceived by intelligent men and women in Washington, D.C. that a great way to save fuel was to create a national speed limit of 55 miles per hour. (I know some of you young’uns may be giggling, but this actually happened.)

Now, I cannot tell you how tedious a 500-mile journey was if you followed the letter of the law and drove 55 miles per hour. Yet there were highway patrolmen all over the place picking people up, and even creating road blocks, to trap those who dared to exceed the “double-nickels.”

The whole era was eventually brought down by truck drivers, who clumped together in large convoys, sometimes ten miles in length, driving 70 miles an hour, challenging the authorities to pick them up en masse.

Just as Prohibition was eventually repealed due to fondness of spirits, the 55 mile per hour speed limit was very soon embedded deeply in our history as a folly of the foolish.

But it took a convoy.

It always takes a convoy.

Your one vote does not stop an onslaught of stupidity. Get together with your friends. Line up ten miles deep—and see how quickly the government lets you speed on.

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