When I drove to work Friday morning, gasoline, where I usually fill my tank, was $3.83 a gallon. Add an extra nickel a gallon if you use a credit card. It's only a matter of time until the price surpasses $4 a gallon and maybe even $5 by Memorial Day.

As depressing as that is, there are motorists in other countries who are worse off than us. Hard to believe, but it's true.Someone sent me this list of gasoline prices around the world, as of March 30. So they may be even higher now. Pay particular attention to the final three on the list, however, and you'll wish that we were an oil producing nation such as the three listed. Oh, we are an oil producing nation? Why, then aren't we producing it, instead of getting hammered at the pumps every time we pull in for a fill up.Here's the list:Oslo, Norway, $6.82 a gallon.Hong Kong, $6.25.Brussels, Belgium., $6.16.London, UK, $5.96.Rome, Italy. $5.80.Canada, $5.36.Tokyo, Japan, $5.25.San Paulo, Brazil, $4.42.New Delhi, India, $3.71.Sidney, Australia, $3.42.Johannesburg, S. Africa, $3.39.Mexico City, $2.22.Buenos Aires, Argentina, $2.09.Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 9 CENTS.Kuwait, 8 CENTS.Caracas, Venezuela, 12 CENTS.Mrs. Ida Totani, who passed away last week at the age of 101, holds a warm place in my heart. She simply made the best Sicilian pizza in the world when her family was running the Aquilla Hotel in Lansford way back when.While I was courting my wife, who lived up the next block from the Aquilla, there were many Saturday nights when I'd stop into the hotel and order some of those scrumptious square slices and take them to her home where we'd watch TV. Good memories never die.According to an AP story, nearly half of the U.S. households pay no taxes, and the rich are paying less.No wonder the country is in such financial turmoil, and our debt ceiling is in the trillions.In Michigan, a 12-year-old girl is facing a possible life felony charge after she allegedly tried to hold up a store while wearing a bandanna over her face. Before the store attempt, she broke into a house and stole a loaded gun which she then used in her aborted robbery attempt.Now that's a far cry from kids just being kids.I usually make one or two visits to Boyer's Market in Tamaqua each week. It's where I do a lot of my grocery shopping. I'm glad my wife and I weren't in there when the guy came in with the much too real looking BB gun last week. That was a scary scene, for the police, for the customers and for the Boyer's employees. It's a small wonder that no one got shot or injured in that incident.Here's a great line from Charley Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinal and a 44-year journalist.Charley claims, "Politicans are the only people in the world who create problems, and then campaign against them."Sounds accurate to me.How stressful is it for school districts, all of which are facing severe budget cuts and deficits?Down in Boyertown, in Berks County, teachers offered to take a wage freeze recently, and the school board turned them down.The reason the board turned down this offer is because the union wanted the board to assure them there wouldn't be any educators furloughed if they agreed to freeze their salaries. And the board refused to make that promise.These are tough times.Here's some good news now that spring has brought out the sense of adventure in many. Motorcycle deaths dropped 2 percent nationwide the first nine months of last year. Let's hope that trend continues and that statistics drop even lower this year.Do something good for Earth Day and every day. Bend over and pick up someone else's litter.For you Major League baseball fans who get too excited or too let down early in the season, here's the best description I've heard about the long 162-game schedule. I'm not sure who said it first, but it makes sense.Most teams, even the best and worst, will win 60 games and lose 60 games before the season ends. It's what a team does with the other 42 games that matters. Those games determine if they're going to make the playoffs or not.Finally, Happy Easter to everyone. Hope you all put a big dent in that Easter ham and Kielbasa. And may you all bite the ears off a chocolate bunny, at least once in your life.