I received an online questionnaire some time ago that asked if I remembered watching Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Father Knows Best, Ben Casey, The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, and other TV shows that were popular back in the early 1950s. The only reason I could determine they asked such questions was to put me in the appropriate age category; maybe they were searching for someone old enough to easily scam?! Why else would they care about my childhood TV programming??
I was just a youngster in the early 50’s; you do the math! While that makes me a senior citizen now, I’m mentally alert and capable of avoiding being swindled.
However, being in the older generation now, I remember things that kids today would know nothing about – such as S&H green stamps, manual typewriters, glass milk bottles, wringer washing machines, rotary dial telephones, pedal-driven sewing machines, black and white televisions, Coke bottles that required a deposit …. Geez, now that I think about it, I seem ancient!
Today’s youthful generation would never consider watching a movie that wasn’t in color and was without surround sound … much like my generation would not have considered silent movies entertaining! Each generation must accept changes and adapt … and some changes are beneficial.
For example, what would I do without benefit of my computer which is speedier and even underlines any misspellings for me? I appreciate the fact that it makes things easier for me in many ways.
But, with progress comes cost, and I happened to find a list of comments that were made by adults in the early to mid-50s. Take a look, and try not to choke on what they felt back then was expensive!
“I’ll tell you one thing, it’s almost impossible to buy a week’s worth of groceries for $20 anymore!”
“Did you hear the Post Office is thinking about charging a dime just to mail a letter?”
“Who would have thought that gasoline would someday cost 29 cents a gallon?!”
“Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $75,000 just to play ball?”
“I read where a few married women are having to go to work to make ends meet for their family!”
“I’m afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a lot of foreign business.”
“If they think I’m going to pay 50 cents for a haircut, forget it!”
“Forget getting away for a weekend; it costs nearly $15 a night to stay in a hotel!”
“We can’t afford to get sick any more because $35 a day in the hospital is simply not affordable for us!”
When we look back at prices during the good ole days, it clearly explains why we worry about inflation today AND in the days to come.
The words below were spoken by a former American Major League baseball player born in 1949 and define “inflation”.
Quote of the Week: “Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten-dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars when you had hair.”
