<< A quick swing through the stores in the lower-income area where I live in Santa Barbara.... Absolutely no signs of last-minute buying at the barrio's major supermarket....except that the plastic water jugs they were selling a couple of months ago have now mostly disappeared, and a small line at the water machine...and a huge display of batteries, largely untouched, I guessed, by one of the checkout aisless....People filling their five gallon jugs outside the store, but not with any sense of rush-rush urgency. At Trader Joe's, stacks of plastic-wrapped water bottles, right by the check-outs...the only sign of anything untoward. No more people than on an average day. No sings of stock-piling among the customers whose wares I looked at. At the local discount gas station, the same: about average number of customers. Conclusion, the same as most of you: People have done most of their stock-piling and are pretty calm. Maybe even more so, because this is Southern California, and it would not be proper to be anything except laidback... Bayard >>

-- Bayard Stockton (drayab@silcom.com), December 31, 1999