Honesty

On the news today there is a story about a gas station in California where the pump price was set at $1.10 instead of $4.29 and in three hours some 7,000 gallons of gas was sold at this lower price. An estimated 300 customers bought gas at this low price and no one reported this to the station manager. Ordinarily I would not pay much attention to a story like this but it reminded me of something that happened to me about 40 years ago. As most of you know I used to own a neighborhood tavern and one night after closing someone broke in and took the money from the till. I don’t recall the amount but I do know that typically about 75% of my daily take was in the form of checks. In the days that followed many customers came in and told me that if their check did not clear the bank they would come in and write me another check. As I recall these people completely reimbursed me for all the checks I lost in the robbery. Does this show how times have changed or does it show the difference between California and North Dakota? I don’t know.