I really can't believe it took me $50 to fill up my gas tank today. About 14 gallons.
The nationwide average price for a gallon of gas at the pumps is now more than $3.50 a gallon, according to AAA. A year ago, gas averaged $2.86.
What's the solution? Federal tax cuts to put more money in consumers' pockets? Tapping into the 700 million barrels of reserves the U.S. has? Instituting a gas cap (see China)?
I don't know about you, but I'm going to dust off the 'ol Schwinn...
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Boundary Street is looking a whole lot better with the new, lower signs out in front of businesses. Not that this has to be Martha's Vineyard, but it also doesn't have to look like US19 in Clearwater, Fla., either (a few more check-chasing joints, and...).
But the city did good in (finally) enforcing an old ordinance to get the rusty signs off the 25-foot poles and give us a cleaner look.
But I still think the Maryland Fried Chicken sign, whether you consider it historic or not, needs to come down.
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Here's a story we're working on today:
The Beaufort County School District proposed two weeks ago to extend the school calendar into summer by 20 days for students in grades three through eight who had not performed well on standardized tests.
Questions remain about whether the district can get federal and state approval to pursue such a change, but, on the surface, the school board seems to like the idea.

A 100-year-old home is considered historic in Beaufort; I imagine Europeans scoff at us when they hear that, what with castles dating back to centuries long past.
But relevant is relevant, and in the context of a country that declared its independence some 234 years ago, I suppose a house built in 1908 is historic.

As I write this morning, lawyers, solicitors and one judge are weighing nine pre-trial motions in the Timothy Wick murder trial.
Wick will stand trial next month for the murder of Beaufort resident Jeanne Welden, known as "the angel lady" for her willingness to help out just about anyone who needed it, including Wick.
Wick has been charged with murder for allegedly sexually assaulting and strangling Beaufort resident Welden during a burglary.
He could face death if convicted.

If anything, we should be lowering the height of buildings in Beaufort; not contemplating raising them.
I used to live near Lake Placid, in the Adirondack Mountains of New York state. You know, the 1980 Winter Olympics... Actually, it was a small town an hour northeast as the crow flies, which meant really out in the middle of nowhere. A one-horse town. No stoplights. During the yearly summer parade, folks lined up on their Lawn Boys and the more well-to-do rode their John Deeres. We're not talking big tractors; lawn mowers.

No, my house wasn't ablaze, nor did I require an EMS team.
But the fire trucks showed up last night in front of my house just the same.
When I heard the whirrr of the siren and blare of the horn, I wondered what was up.
Then it hit me.
So I scooped up my 6-month-old son and scurried out to the front porch, and there was the truck, lights ablaze and Santa himself sitting on the front bumper, greeting the neighborhood kids as they ran out to meet him.

Not surprisingly, we received a handful of calls and e-mails this morning chastising the Gazette for lack of taste, timing and heart regarding our report on Mayor Bill Rauch being investigated by the State Ethics Commission while he's recovering in ICU from some very serious injuries sustained in a car accident last week.
Some of the readers were disappointed that we ran the story, and they maintained that we should have waited until his full recovery before reporting the news. One caller asked for Jan. 3.

While driving along Ribaut Road in Port Royal on Saturday, I was startled to see what looked like a witch's head perched atop the Welcome to Port Royal sign recently erected at the Paris Avenue intersection.
Not exactly inviting; actually, it's the kind of thing that would have given me nightmares as a boy, like the Wicked Witch of the West and that horrid "Screaming Skull" from the movie with the same namesake.
Anyhow, I guess art is subjective, but...
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The Beaufort City Council is caught between a rock and a hard place. Last night, the members had to decide whether to spend two accounts — one earmarked for helping a blighted neighborhood, the other to help neighborhoods under water — to renovate yet another neighborhood with a federal grant that had a time limit attached to it.
In the end, the city did the right thing: It decided to move forward with the Bladen Street redevelopment program.