Bea on Oil

The bedsores on Bea’s toes seem better, although her left foot still feels like ice, so Lisa begins another massage. Suddenly Bea says, “Hopscotch.” She pronounces the word with such delectation that I surmise a memory of childhood has just surfaced. I am about to request details when she asks, “Isn’t that the name of a town in the Middle East?”

Lisa and I smother giggles.

There was a time when my mother's mind wasn’t such a quagmire. On a slip of paper, she has left us these thoughts on oil, drafted in the early eighties:

“Ever since the passage of the oil depletion allowance, the oil industry, its lobbyists and Congressmen, whose campaigns have been supported by the industry, the US has been strongly influenced by all aspects of oil production and processing. Investment in research on other forms of energy has been sparse, if not willfully blinded (sp.?).

Since the discovery of oil in the Middle East, US presence and influence there have been motivated by oil economics.

Other countries have comparable influences in their governments. Where a country gets its oil now shapes that country’s foreign policy.

Third World countries with oil resources become subtle pawns.

Why? Economic necessity: all industrialized countries depend on oil…”