Getting hosed

The older you are, the more it hurts to pull into a gas station. We've long since become inured to triple-digit gas prices. But if you started driving in the 1960s or earlier, you remember when two bucks would get you eight gallons of regular. If you hit the road in 1973, during the first oil embargo, you still feel the shock of seeing regular hit 75 cents a gallon. Six years later, it was more than a dollar. When the calender turned 2000, the price started to climb in earnest. By a month ago, it was $2.50 a gallon - more than cola. And still motorists kept filling ‘er up, so numb to the expense they thought nothing could shock them. And then Hurricane Katrina went through the Gulf Coast like a tornado through a trailer park. Within days, gas prices climbed past $3 - if you could get it. Inside, we take a look at how motorists and service-station employees in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are coping with a post-Katrina world.