Charles Alan May, 75, died March 1, 2010, in Ketchikan. He was born Oct. 20, 1934, in Seaside, Ore.

Summer of 2008 was unlike '09 in more than just the weather reports.

Monday on the West End, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.50. A year ago Monday, though, a gallon of gasoline here cost $4.06. It headed up from there to the all-time-high of $4.46 by July's end.

The $4-plus price dipped a bit by October, but it wasn't until November that it dipped below $4 a gallon. Then on Dec. 19, gas dropped a dollar a gallon here - perhaps you remember the demonstration objecting to the high prices even as they fell so suddenly.

Since February, the price has maintained at around $2.40 a gallon, going up to $2.46 a gallon on the West End in April and staying put there until Monday, when it went up four cents to $2.50 ($2.499, to be precise).

It's unlikely the stations are getting thank-you notes from consumers these days, and the fact that our gasoline prices are lower than those in Washington state (average price Monday, $2.86, with $2.82 Seattle's average), Los Angeles ($2.82), Chicago ($2.87), and New York ($2.66) is hardly the topic of agitated conversation at local gatherings these days.

But so it is, at least for now: While they've stayed flat since coming down so precipitously that December day (the retail price nationwide also dropped steeply back then), our prices are lower than virtually everyplace else in the nation. Only Houston, where consumers pay $2.47 for a gallon of regular on Monday, was lower on the sample-prices list posted by the Energy Information Administration.

To see for yourself, the weekly average retail prices for regular gasoline in the United States are posted by the EIA at eia.doe.gov (go to petroleum, then reports, choosing U.S. Retail Gasoline Prices).

We are pretty good at complaining when we've been on the other end of that equation. Maybe since we got so good at handling sunshine for the first half of this glorious month, we can work on other appreciation skills, as well.