By Carl Sampson
I think it’s about time for me to hang up the old crystal ball. My days as a prognosticator are over.
Of course, it was a great — albeit short — run, but all good things must come to an end.
My career as a seer of the future got under way last spring when, sitting on the back porch with an iced tea, I told anyone who would listen to me — my cat, Eddy — that John McCain should pick the Honorable Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, as his running mate.
That part was right. I just didn’t know that McCain’s campaign would convert her into a “Saturday Night Live” punchline.
I also said Barack Obama should pick Arnold Schwarzenegger as his running mate. Heck, even Arnold’s wife, Maria Shriver, endorsed Obama, so it really wasn’t much of a leap.
Other folks said that would be impossible, because Arnold wasn’t born in the U.S.
To which I said, “So what? There’s a whole bunch of people out there who don’t believe Obama was born in the U.S., either.”
Then I made the prediction that made me a superstar. Last spring, with a gallon of gasoline hovering around $4.25, I predicted it would drop below $3 a gallon by the end of the year.
I figured that the value of the dollar would rise after the election and that most of the speculators would have lost their shirts by then, so gas prices would drop like a Republican candidate in the polls.
Of course, everyone I told this to looked at me as though I had three eyes.
I was right, too, sort of. As I write this, gas is under $3 a gallon, all right. It was $1.95, a reduction far exceeding even the limits of my powers of prediction.
I must admit, those powers have been a little iffy in other areas.
Last spring I predicted that Obama would win only six states. I even listed which ones they would be — Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, California, Oregon and Washington.
Well, I was half right. I knew one of the candidates would get skunked, but I got the wrong guy.
Let’s see, what else did I predict? Oh yes, I predicted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would be over 12,000 by the end of the year.
Hey, I’ve got another month, so just hang in there.
And I predicted the Philadelphia Eagles would win the Super Bowl this time around.
Actually, I misread my psychic hotline, because it was really the Philadelphia Phillies who won big, taking the World Series. At least I got the city right.
Before I retire, I do have one more prediction to make.
Ahem. I must get in the proper frame of mind. Where’s my iced tea? Oh yes, here we go.
I can see it clearly. According to my inside information — Wait a minute! I see a bulletin coming in.
It says, and I quote, “You will live in interesting times.”
