You’ve heard it said, “Life is a dance.”

Now, I have danced for many years, and I’d like you to hear my story of my dance with a partner named “oil.” I’m curious to know if your story is in any way similar to mine. However, if you are not from Texas, as I am, I doubt if our stories are similar.

Beginning in fifth grade and through high school graduation, my family lived in a poor subdivision outside Houston called Jacinto City (as in the Battle of San Jacinto that won Texas independence from Mexico-or stole it as the case may be.) We lived only a few miles from the Houston ship channel, where oil refineries lined the banks for mile upon mile. The paper mill and the oil refineries provided most of the jobs in the area, so no one complained too much about the air pollution or effluents dumped into the ship channel.

When I married, my husband worked for one of the oil refineries. Our two girls were born first, and they suffered from severe bouts of croup-gasping for breath as we sat in a steaming bathroom attempting to relieve their swollen air passages. When my son was born, he began to suffer from dangerous high fevers associated with acute bronchitis. At times he became delirious when his temperature spiked at night.

One day he was very sick, and as I rushed him to the doctor, I noticed the yellow smog we were all breathing. I asked the doctor if his illnesses could be caused by the dirty air, and the answer, not surprisingly, was, “Yes, of course.” I went home and told my husband that we were moving-even though by this time we owned our own small dental laboratory business.

This dance with my “oil” partner was not only difficult, but very expensive. We sold our new home, and moved to Colorado Springs, where there was little industry, and began to build a new clientele for the dental laboratory.

Within a few months, I was to learn another lesson about my dance with oil. Colorado Springs is 6,500 feet above sea level, and automobile exhaust at high altitudes is twice as polluting as at sea level, so when there is a temperature inversion all the auto exhaust is held tightly close to the ground.

To make matters worse, Colorado Springs is built in a bowl right up against the Rocky Mountains. My son got sick every time there was a temperature inversion.

During the next nine years, we protected him from smoke-filled environments, and he began to outgrow most of the illnesses. However, in the late 1970s, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided to decrease dramatically the oil supply to the United States, and there were long lines at the gas pumps.

Remember, Colorado, like Maine, depends on the tourist industry for a majority of its revenue. People began to lose their jobs, and people were not having their dentists prepare gold crowns. Our business began to suffer. We sold our home and moved back to the outskirts of Houston. From waking every morning looking at Pikes Peak to waking every morning to see the ozone-thick air was not a happy dance!

Within only a few months, we moved again, this time to Tyler, about a two hour drive east of Dallas, where we were able to start the business anew. What a happy dance! Green trees were everywhere, and neighborhoods and parks surrounded the many lakes.

After an amicable divorce, I married my good friend and life partner, Keith Williams. He was the assistant city engineer for the City of Tyler. The rich oil barons have their businesses in Houston and Dallas, but move their families to Tyler, where the azaleas and dogwood blossoms greet each new spring.

So this whirling dance turned into a dirge when it began to get more and more expensive to pump less and less oil. Less oil meant less revenue for the city, which meant fewer jobs. Hundreds of thousands of people in Texas lost their jobs. For-sale signs dotted too many front lawns. Keith lost his job in the third round of cuts.

We moved in December of 1988 to Maine, where Keith had found work. The dance has been good for 20 years, but now my partner “oil” has called a halt to the dance. And this time it will affect not only my life, but yours as well.

Imagine a life without oil. We must find a new dance partner – and fast.