Easy Negotiations

Me Grandpa Joe, he didn't negotiate price. Oh, he'd allow his friend Amos to do so in his stead, so I'm probably playing a bit loose with this assertion. Still, Joe to my knowledge never himself negotiated a price.

I found this out on a trip through western Michigan with him, looking for a pump jack as I recall. I'm still not sure what a pump jack is but I know it had to do with the oil wells he was invested in back in the day, and I know they were big because we had to take his manual shift stake truck with the ten foot bed to carry one.

Anyhow, after driving for two days, two days of me learning to drive a stick I might add (so there were a lot of fits and spurts and stalled engines as I learned through trial by error) we ended up at his friend Ford's. Ford was his actual first name; I don't remember his last. Ford took us out into a field of various machinery, about in the middle of which was an old pump jack. It looked like an oversized grasshopper to me. Joe asked Ford what he wanted, and Ford told him. Joe took a drag on a cigarette, then just said kinda quietly, "I think I'll pass." We began the trip home.

Grandpa explained to me that a fella knows what his stuff is worth, and who was he to argue with that? I get what he means. I rarely negotiate myself, usually giving a simply yea or nay when dealing with someone one on one. And it ain't like we can typically negotiate anyway: at Kroger you pay what Kroger asks for groceries or you walk on by. I suppose I was just a bit miffed that, after lurching across the state and staying one long night in a tired old hotel, the journey was for naught. In the end though, I respect his point.

Oil and the Irish Hills

Thar's gold in them that hills. It's been know for several years now that the area in Jackson and Lenawee Counties called the Irish Hills has had oil. The area currently produces about 2% oil the oil used by Michigan residents and is the largest oil producing part of the state.

But of course, angst follows the wells. The people in the area, even those benefiting from oil pumps on their own property, worry about the long term affects. Chief amongst the worries are the environmental concerns which come naturally with the oil industry, as well as problems such as road damage which come with the heavier trucks needed to haul oil and oil related items in and out of the area.

There are worries about contamination of the drinking water and the odor of petroleum, fears of earthquakes which may result from the drilling. To be sure, none of the issues are invalid. They seem to get right to the heart of the trouble with our nation's need for oil: we need it, yet wherever it's found it's going be at the least inconvenient for the locale.

What can we say about that? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, as a general rule. We need oil and there's some where you live. Beyond a genuine, verifiably serious risk to your homes and well being, we don't know what else to say. We need to get to the crude.

That sounds cruder than we mean it. But, sadly, sometimes things simply are what they are and no one can really do much about it. Sure, it's easy to say that those of us who don't have to deal directly with the smells and the road destruction and the worry about the future for the locals to say, go on and drill it. But, what else do you want us to do? What else can you do? It simply is what it is; might as well make the best of it.

Sometimes life is a bowl of cherries. Sometimes it's a bowl of lemons. After finding out which, you just have to do the best you can with what you've got. Our sympathies are with the folks in the Irish Hills. But our overall well being needs the oil. It's another one those trade offs life forces on us as a whole. We do what is best within reason, and be grateful that it isn't worse.