The Oil Barrel: We will do a lot of things differently

The toast popped up, hot to the touch (yup, I touched it - I live my life on the edge), I grabbed my favourite buttering knife, and slapped a layer of margarine over each waiting surface.

And as I did so, as is often the case, I remembered back to the days when preparing a highly nutritious breakfast wasn't quite so easy.

Travel back with me, if you dare, to 1955 and to the kitchen of the lovely wee home I lived in at that time.

"Gordon, get the Blue Bonnet margarine out of the fridge, okay?" said my mother.

"Sure, mom, I'd be happy to do that for you," I replied.

(If my mother was alive she would stare in disbelief at the above line. I usually had to be reminded several times to pay attention and heavily bribed to do even the simplest task).


I went to the fridge, pulled out the new box of margarine, opened it and withdrew a one pound packet of white margarine.

I flipped over the plastic packet and reached toward the brown gel button (it looked like a big belly button in the middle of a white tummy) and gave it a squeeze between a finger and thumb. It popped, released the liquid colouring agent, and I began rolling and squeezing the white olio and liquid together for several minutes until they mixed thoroughly to become "just the right shade of yellow" Blue Bonnet margarine.

With my duties done for the day, I ran outside in my pajamas and climbed a tree and started throwing eggs at passersby and my neighbour's dog. Or something like that. My memories are foggy. It was 1955, after all.

The old margarine squeezing scenario is forever gone because now margarine comes in plastic tubs and some machine has already done the mixing for us. We're so used to it being done for us that if any of us had to squeeze a gel pak and roll our own marg we'd probably moan and groan and write a letter to the editor of the nearest paper to say how tough life is. For sure, kids would look at their mother's as if she had horns and run outside in their pjs (do kids wear pajamas today?) and egg something. Egging would almost be an automatic response.

However, because oil consumption and prices have risen together steadily for almost 30 years and all aspects of life are getting more expensive - while I sit here and talk about gel buttons - we may all be doing a lot of things differently some day soon.

In fact, I think we already are and may not know it.

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