When I first came to North Carolina in 1998, I could fill my car with gas and get a carton of Camels with a twenty dollar bill — and get change. Coming from my previous Queens abode, where it would have taken four of those twenties to accomplish the same feat, I knew that I had indeed come to a far, far better place.
(I gave up the Camels years ago. It’s kind of hard to give up driving, though, and gas is chewing its way through many twenties. And it’s a smaller car.)
On New Year’s Eve, it’s amazing to think how things have changed in what does not seem like such a long time. Heck, tomorrow morning you won’t be able to smoke in restaurants anymore.
Commemorate 2009 on today’s open line.