Keep on Truckin'

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What's a gallon of gas worth? Well, as you know, a lot more today than this time last year. And according to the experts, it'll be worth a lot more this time next month. If prices continue to rise, Americans might think twice about taking that summer road trip.

But maybe not, because we're a nation that travels for all kinds of reasons. For example, John Steinbeck's powerful novel The Grapes of Wrath vividly described how, after the Depression, Oklahoma migrant workers pushed west to make a living. They drove rickety cars and broken-down pickup trucks. But today, it's nothing for Americans to relocate for work. In Steinbeck's book, Okies heading toward California faced brutal hardships and discrimination. But the hero's mother told her son, "You got to have patience. Why, Tom -- us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people -- we go on."

And so they did, overcoming hunger and humiliation to help turn California into an agricultural cornucopia. And I think we Americans will keep traveling in search of a better life and new roads, no matter what the price of gas.

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