Gasoline is one of the great anomalies of American life.
Most of us seldom ever actually see it, even though many of us now pump it ourselves. We turn up our noses at the smell of it. We bridle at the sight of big tankers carrying crude up our rivers, afraid they will slime our precious places. We hate the great smelly refineries that turn the slime into gasoline. We think the people who suck the slime out of the ground and turn it into gasoline are robbers and crooks.