I've been expecting to see Christopher Lloyd and a DeLorean come around the corner any time.

With all the sudden concern about gas prices, it's Back to the Future for those of us who remember the last energy crisis.

Solar panels, gas-saving devices, lines at the fuel pumps, wind generators -- it brings back loads of memories from the late 1970s and early 1980s.

My main question is: Where have we been all these years?

It's not like the oil embargo wasn't adequate warning that we were in serious trouble in this country.

Instead, 25 years later, we're driving larger cars at faster speeds.

Not that I enjoyed the 50 mph speed limit Nixon set in the early days of the old energy crisis -- even 55 was unbearable.

But had we taken a fraction of the money we've spent on wars in oil producing countries, put it into research and development, out dependence on foreign oil would be but a dim memory.

For old hippie-influenced, back-to-the-land babyboomers like myself, the new trends read like something out of the Mother Earth News of decades past.

Take solar panels.

The last time the Gazette had a major roof reconstruction, the old forced-air solar system was junked. Now, I'm wondering how one of those panels would have looked on the roof of our house.

(Yes, I know it's just a meaningless mental exercise -- a huge black box on the roof wouldn't have flown very far with the chief home decorator at the Crosby house.)

I remember looking longingly at magazine designs for solar collectors that slipped into the bottom of a double-hung window, promising free heat to overcome winter's chill.

It's not that we've been standing completely still on the home energy front, we've noticed enough drop in our energy bills to pay for the cost of the new heater and air conditioner, water heater, washer and dryer and a couple of new windows recently installed.

Years ago, the Mother Earth News carried plans for hybrid cars that drew the attention mostly of crackpot readers like myself.

One design converted an Opal GT -- kind of a German miniature version of a Corvette -- into a hybrid powered by small lawnmower-type engine, an alternator, a bank of car batteries and a combination generator-electrical motor salvaged from a jet engine.

Now, it's fascinating to see hybrid cars and trucks flying off the new-car lots as quickly as they can be built.

Sunday's New York Times carried a story about how investors seem to think that solar panel companies are poised to make a killing, and that night, I watched a show that included the building of a new home that included solar panels and an electricity-producing windmill.

I have to admit a bias toward wind power, whether it's from being a Sutherland Sailor, building a wind-powered wagon as a teen, or climbing a windmill to get a good look at a coyote in the pasture.

So, it's with fascination that I've watched from afar the construction of the Nebraska Public Power District's new wind farm near Ainsworth, another of my old stompin' grounds.

Since Nebraska never seems to have a shortage of wind, using it to generate electricity seems like a natural for the state.

But north central Nebraska is a long way from here, and it seems to me that NPPD ought to look to Southwest Nebraska for its next site.

Yes, concerns about gas prices and alternative energy sure make it feel like the late 1970s again.

Maybe I shouldn't sell that old CB radio at the garage sale, after all.