Gold prices plummet!

"mazorj" wrote in message
...

"oly" wrote in message
...
On Sep 25, 8:31 am, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:
j-rod wrote:
oly wrote:

...
I can remember five cent first class stamps, but I might be
stretching it a bit to say that I really remember the five cent
candy bar. Even at age seven or eight (c.1967) we were just a bit
past that on the long march of U.S. monetary inflation.

I always admired the inventor fellow in the Scrooge McDuck series -
Gyro Gearloose or some name like that???

Huey, Dewey and Louie were a little bratty, 'tho basically good boys.
They were a little bit like Popeye's "Swee' Pea" - whose the heck
kids were they, anyway???

oly

I can remember my father paying 23¢ for a gallon of gas.

When I started driving is was already up to 30¢.

I remember when vending machine cigarettes cost 23c as well. You'd put a
quarter in the machine and out would pop a pack of Camels with 2 cents
change under the cellophane. The lucky customers got one, maybe two, 55
doubled dies.

James the Non-Smoker- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Limited to certain upstate NY vending machines only, if memory serves...

I wonder if the jobber who serviced those machines ever knew...

I remember those, at a time when I had never ventured farther north than
Noo Yawk City. I also saw them locally, farther south. The pennies
always were shiny new ones but the ones I saw were common dates. Since
we're playing the Memory Lane prices game, I remember:

Working in a store in 1964 and selling cigarettes at 17 cents, two for 33
cents for the "regular" size (Luckies, Camels), 18 cents and 2 for 35
cents for king size and filter tips.

I rember buying "Wings" for 18¢ and some other obscure brand that offered
what looked like a Scotch tape mouthpiece. I lived in RI where many of the
1955 DDO's were found. My dad found two for me.


Gas below 30 cents. Asking my father what "ESSO" stood for while the
attendant pumped our gas, cleaned our windshield, and checked the oil.
Dad having to specify "use the detergent oil" if it was low.

I ran into some 15¢/gallon gas wars in Florida in 1965 when convenience
stores began adding fuel pumps.


Stamps at 4 cents, and IIRC, even the 3-cent era.

The nickel 1-oz. Hershey bar of the 1950s, and later around 1970 when they
raised the price by cutting the content to 7/8-oz. - creating a BIG stink
from chocolate lovers.


My parents gave me 5¢ "babysitting money" to watch my younger brother in the
early 1950's. I was able to fill a small brown bag with penny candies from
the local mom & pop store for that nickel.

Driving my wife-to-be's new $2,000 1968 Chevy Nova, and later plunking
down the extraordinary amount of $3,000 for an orange 1973 VW Super
Beetle.

In the Army in 1962, I found that a $100 bill usually gave one lots of
choices at the local used car lots. I chose a 1951 Chevy for $50 and drove
it away.


$2000 per semester for tuition with room & board at a top-level
university.

I paid $820 for my first year at Rhode Island School of Design in 1959.
Tuition there now is higher than Brown University next door.


Blue Whitman coin folders at around 15 cents each. Banks that
occasionally had real silver dollars for wide-eyed young collectors.

Youre' lucky with the folders. The ones I remember were 35¢. My mom worked
in a bank in the 1950's and on Fridays she would bring home 20 silver
dollars for me to date-check. I was only able to afford a couple
medium-toughies, but it was fun looking.


McDonald hamburgers at 15 cents, cheeseburgers for 19 cents.

The small 5-cent Coke bottles (around 6-3/4 oz.) from the machine at the
barber shop (75 cents for a "regular boy's haircut") and you had to put
the empty back in the partitioned wooden case or cough up two cents for
the bottle deposit.

Aren't those small bottles making a limited comeback today? I recall the 5¢
bottles as well as the occasional high tech machine that offered several
different brand and flavor options. Tough choice between grape and orange.
Never paid more than 50¢ for a haircut until I went into the Army.


Asking neighbors for their empty Coke and Pepsi bottles to redeem the
2-cent deposits at the grocery store.

And last but quite possibly the best - the store clerk automatically
throwing a free churchkey into the bag with every purchase of a $1.10
six-pack. If you didn't buy any beer they were 5 cents but everyone
already had a drawer full of them.

I always carried one of my own, as did most kids (er, young men) who drank
beer. A couple of Giant Imperial Quarts (GIQ's) of Narragansett at 50¢ each
were usually enough to do the trick, whatever the trick might have been.


Oh, one more... In the 1950s, hearing from our elders that the 1950s,
which we now regard as the "good old days," actually sucked and the good
old days of 5-cent bread, 10-cent gas, and 75-cent steak dinners with all
the trimmings already were behind us.

For my parents, starting out during the Depression, there weren't as many
"good old days" memories as I had.

On Sep 25, 7:02*pm, "Bruce Remick" wrote:
"mazorj" wrote in message

...







"oly" wrote in message
....
On Sep 25, 8:31 am, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:
j-rod wrote:
oly wrote:

...
I can remember five cent first class stamps, but I might be
stretching it a bit to say that I really remember the five cent
candy bar. Even at age seven or eight (c.1967) we were just a bit
past that on the long march of U.S. monetary inflation.

I always admired the inventor fellow in the Scrooge McDuck series -
Gyro Gearloose or some name like that???

Huey, Dewey and Louie were a little bratty, 'tho basically good boys.
They were a little bit like Popeye's "Swee' Pea" - whose the heck
kids were they, anyway???

oly

I can remember my father paying 23¢ for a gallon of gas.

When I started driving is was already up to 30¢.

I remember when vending machine cigarettes cost 23c as well. You'd put a
quarter in the machine and out would pop a pack of Camels with 2 cents
change under the cellophane. The lucky customers got one, maybe two, 55
doubled dies.

James the Non-Smoker- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Limited to certain upstate NY vending machines only, if memory serves....

I wonder if the jobber who serviced those machines ever knew...

I remember those, at a time when I had never ventured farther north than
Noo Yawk City. *I also saw them locally, farther south. *The pennies
always were shiny new ones but the ones I saw were common dates. *Since
we're playing the Memory Lane prices game, I remember:

Working in a store in 1964 and selling cigarettes at 17 cents, two for 33
cents for the "regular" size (Luckies, Camels), 18 cents and 2 for 35
cents for king size and filter tips.

I rember buying "Wings" for 18¢ and some other obscure brand that offered
what looked like a Scotch tape mouthpiece. *I lived in RI where many of the
1955 DDO's were found. *My dad found two for me.



Gas below 30 cents. *Asking my father what "ESSO" stood for while the
attendant pumped our gas, cleaned our windshield, and checked the oil.
Dad having to specify "use the detergent oil" if it was low.

I ran into some 15¢/gallon gas wars in Florida in 1965 when convenience
stores began adding fuel pumps.



Stamps at 4 cents, and IIRC, even the 3-cent era.

The nickel 1-oz. Hershey bar of the 1950s, and later around 1970 when they
raised the price by cutting the content to 7/8-oz. - creating a BIG stink
from chocolate lovers.

My parents gave me 5¢ "babysitting money" to watch my younger brother in the
early 1950's. *I was able to fill a small brown bag with penny candies from
the local mom & pop store for that nickel.

Driving my wife-to-be's new $2,000 1968 Chevy Nova, and later plunking
down the extraordinary amount of $3,000 for an orange 1973 VW Super
Beetle.

In the Army in 1962, I found that a $100 bill usually gave one lots of
choices at the local used car lots. *I chose a 1951 Chevy for $50 and drove
it away.



$2000 per semester for tuition with room & board at a top-level
university.

I paid $820 for my first year at Rhode Island School of Design in 1959.
Tuition there now is higher than Brown University next door.



Blue Whitman coin folders at around 15 cents each. *Banks that
occasionally had real silver dollars for wide-eyed young collectors.

Youre' lucky with the folders. *The ones I remember were 35¢. *My mom worked
in a bank in the 1950's and on Fridays she would bring home 20 silver
dollars for me to date-check. *I was only able to afford a couple
medium-toughies, but it was fun looking.



McDonald hamburgers at 15 cents, cheeseburgers for 19 cents.

The small 5-cent Coke bottles (around 6-3/4 oz.) from the machine at the
barber shop (75 cents for a "regular boy's haircut") and you had to put
the empty back in the partitioned wooden case or cough up two cents for
the bottle deposit.

Aren't those small bottles making a limited comeback today? *I recall the 5¢
bottles as well as the occasional high tech machine that offered several
different brand and flavor options. *Tough choice between grape and orange.
Never paid more than 50¢ for a haircut until I went into the Army.



Asking neighbors for their empty Coke and Pepsi bottles to redeem the
2-cent deposits at the grocery store.

And last but quite possibly the best - the store clerk automatically
throwing a free churchkey into the bag with every purchase of a $1.10
six-pack. *If you didn't buy any beer they were 5 cents but everyone
already had a drawer full of them.

I always carried one of my own, as did most kids (er, young men) who drank
beer. *A couple of Giant Imperial Quarts (GIQ's) of Narragansett at 50¢ each
were usually enough to do the trick, whatever the trick might have been.



Oh, one more... In the 1950s, hearing from our elders that the 1950s,
which we now regard as the "good old days," actually sucked and the good
old days of 5-cent bread, 10-cent gas, and 75-cent steak dinners with all
the trimmings already were behind us.

For my parents, starting out during the Depression, there weren't as many
"good old days" memories as I had.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Tuition for my first two semesters at the University of Illinois in
'77-'78 was $450 each semester (books another $150 or so). My dad was
a grain farmer who was doing very well in those days and I had no
money worries. The cost of everything plus some monthly allowance $$$
was $3,000 per year. I bought several nice 1904 Liberty $20s for
under $250 in the winter of 1977-78 and sold them about eighteen
months later for a triple. That was my beer and pizza and personal
library/books money for several semesters plus a new color TV.

While that tuition price may sound stiff to those who went through 15
years earlier, I can regale my many nieces and newphews with that
number nowadays.

My youngest sister (nine years younger) attended Illinois Wesleyan
(sic) University and my dad said that her 1st year costs more or less
totaled my entire four years at U of I.

Some of my earlier financial memories involve Nixon's horse**** "Wage
and Price Controls". By then, I was old enough to notice that lots of
little things popped in price after the controls were lifted.

oly

oly wrote:
On Sep 25, 7:02 pm, "Bruce Remick" wrote:
"mazorj" wrote in message

...







"oly" wrote in message
...
On Sep 25, 8:31 am, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com
wrote:
j-rod wrote:
oly wrote:

...
I can remember five cent first class stamps, but I might be
stretching it a bit to say that I really remember the five cent
candy bar. Even at age seven or eight (c.1967) we were just a bit
past that on the long march of U.S. monetary inflation.

I always admired the inventor fellow in the Scrooge McDuck
series - Gyro Gearloose or some name like that???

Huey, Dewey and Louie were a little bratty, 'tho basically good
boys. They were a little bit like Popeye's "Swee' Pea" - whose
the heck kids were they, anyway???

oly

I can remember my father paying 23¢ for a gallon of gas.

When I started driving is was already up to 30¢.

I remember when vending machine cigarettes cost 23c as well. You'd
put a quarter in the machine and out would pop a pack of Camels
with 2 cents change under the cellophane. The lucky customers got
one, maybe two, 55 doubled dies.

James the Non-Smoker- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Limited to certain upstate NY vending machines only, if memory
serves...
I wonder if the jobber who serviced those machines ever knew...

I remember those, at a time when I had never ventured farther north
than Noo Yawk City. I also saw them locally, farther south. The
pennies
always were shiny new ones but the ones I saw were common dates.
Since we're playing the Memory Lane prices game, I remember:

Working in a store in 1964 and selling cigarettes at 17 cents, two
for 33 cents for the "regular" size (Luckies, Camels), 18 cents and
2 for 35 cents for king size and filter tips.

I rember buying "Wings" for 18¢ and some other obscure brand that
offered what looked like a Scotch tape mouthpiece. I lived in RI
where many of the 1955 DDO's were found. My dad found two for me.



Gas below 30 cents. Asking my father what "ESSO" stood for while the
attendant pumped our gas, cleaned our windshield, and checked the
oil. Dad having to specify "use the detergent oil" if it was low.

I ran into some 15¢/gallon gas wars in Florida in 1965 when
convenience stores began adding fuel pumps.



Stamps at 4 cents, and IIRC, even the 3-cent era.

The nickel 1-oz. Hershey bar of the 1950s, and later around 1970
when they raised the price by cutting the content to 7/8-oz. -
creating a BIG stink from chocolate lovers.

My parents gave me 5¢ "babysitting money" to watch my younger
brother in the early 1950's. I was able to fill a small brown bag
with penny candies from the local mom & pop store for that nickel.

Driving my wife-to-be's new $2,000 1968 Chevy Nova, and later
plunking down the extraordinary amount of $3,000 for an orange 1973
VW Super Beetle.

In the Army in 1962, I found that a $100 bill usually gave one lots
of choices at the local used car lots. I chose a 1951 Chevy for $50
and drove it away.



$2000 per semester for tuition with room & board at a top-level
university.

I paid $820 for my first year at Rhode Island School of Design in
1959. Tuition there now is higher than Brown University next door.



Blue Whitman coin folders at around 15 cents each. Banks that
occasionally had real silver dollars for wide-eyed young collectors.

Youre' lucky with the folders. The ones I remember were 35¢. My mom
worked in a bank in the 1950's and on Fridays she would bring home
20 silver dollars for me to date-check. I was only able to afford a
couple medium-toughies, but it was fun looking.



McDonald hamburgers at 15 cents, cheeseburgers for 19 cents.

The small 5-cent Coke bottles (around 6-3/4 oz.) from the machine
at the barber shop (75 cents for a "regular boy's haircut") and you
had to put the empty back in the partitioned wooden case or cough
up two cents for the bottle deposit.

Aren't those small bottles making a limited comeback today? I recall
the 5¢ bottles as well as the occasional high tech machine that
offered several different brand and flavor options. Tough choice
between grape and orange. Never paid more than 50¢ for a haircut
until I went into the Army.



Asking neighbors for their empty Coke and Pepsi bottles to redeem
the 2-cent deposits at the grocery store.

And last but quite possibly the best - the store clerk automatically
throwing a free churchkey into the bag with every purchase of a
$1.10 six-pack. If you didn't buy any beer they were 5 cents but
everyone already had a drawer full of them.

I always carried one of my own, as did most kids (er, young men) who
drank beer. A couple of Giant Imperial Quarts (GIQ's) of
Narragansett at 50¢ each were usually enough to do the trick,
whatever the trick might have been.



Oh, one more... In the 1950s, hearing from our elders that the
1950s, which we now regard as the "good old days," actually sucked
and the good old days of 5-cent bread, 10-cent gas, and 75-cent
steak dinners with all the trimmings already were behind us.

For my parents, starting out during the Depression, there weren't as
many "good old days" memories as I had.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Tuition for my first two semesters at the University of Illinois in
'77-'78 was $450 each semester (books another $150 or so). My dad was
a grain farmer who was doing very well in those days and I had no
money worries. The cost of everything plus some monthly allowance $$$
was $3,000 per year. I bought several nice 1904 Liberty $20s for
under $250 in the winter of 1977-78 and sold them about eighteen
months later for a triple. That was my beer and pizza and personal
library/books money for several semesters plus a new color TV.

While that tuition price may sound stiff to those who went through 15
years earlier, I can regale my many nieces and newphews with that
number nowadays.

My youngest sister (nine years younger) attended Illinois Wesleyan
(sic) University and my dad said that her 1st year costs more or less
totaled my entire four years at U of I.

Some of my earlier financial memories involve Nixon's horse**** "Wage
and Price Controls". By then, I was old enough to notice that lots of
little things popped in price after the controls were lifted.

No matter how much anyone here, including myself, waxes nostalgic, I will
continue to proclaim that "THESE are the good old days."

James the Libertine

On Sep 25, 8:06*pm, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:
oly wrote:
On Sep 25, 7:02 pm, "Bruce Remick" wrote:
"mazorj" wrote in message

. ..

"oly" wrote in message
....
On Sep 25, 8:31 am, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com
wrote:
j-rod wrote:
oly wrote:

...
I can remember five cent first class stamps, but I might be
stretching it a bit to say that I really remember the five cent
candy bar. Even at age seven or eight (c.1967) we were just a bit
past that on the long march of U.S. monetary inflation.

I always admired the inventor fellow in the Scrooge McDuck
series - Gyro Gearloose or some name like that???

Huey, Dewey and Louie were a little bratty, 'tho basically good
boys. They were a little bit like Popeye's "Swee' Pea" - whose
the heck kids were they, anyway???

oly

I can remember my father paying 23¢ for a gallon of gas.

When I started driving is was already up to 30¢.

I remember when vending machine cigarettes cost 23c as well. You'd
put a quarter in the machine and out would pop a pack of Camels
with 2 cents change under the cellophane. The lucky customers got
one, maybe two, 55 doubled dies.

James the Non-Smoker- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Limited to certain upstate NY vending machines only, if memory
serves...
I wonder if the jobber who serviced those machines ever knew...

I remember those, at a time when I had never ventured farther north
than Noo Yawk City. I also saw them locally, farther south. The
pennies
always were shiny new ones but the ones I saw were common dates.
Since we're playing the Memory Lane prices game, I remember:

Working in a store in 1964 and selling cigarettes at 17 cents, two
for 33 cents for the "regular" size (Luckies, Camels), 18 cents and
2 for 35 cents for king size and filter tips.

I rember buying "Wings" for 18¢ and some other obscure brand that
offered what looked like a Scotch tape mouthpiece. I lived in RI
where many of the 1955 DDO's were found. My dad found two for me.

Gas below 30 cents. Asking my father what "ESSO" stood for while the
attendant pumped our gas, cleaned our windshield, and checked the
oil. Dad having to specify "use the detergent oil" if it was low.

I ran into some 15¢/gallon gas wars in Florida in 1965 when
convenience stores began adding fuel pumps.

Stamps at 4 cents, and IIRC, even the 3-cent era.

The nickel 1-oz. Hershey bar of the 1950s, and later around 1970
when they raised the price by cutting the content to 7/8-oz. -
creating a BIG stink from chocolate lovers.

My parents gave me 5¢ "babysitting money" to watch my younger
brother in the early 1950's. I was able to fill a small brown bag
with penny candies from the local mom & pop store for that nickel.

Driving my wife-to-be's new $2,000 1968 Chevy Nova, and later
plunking down the extraordinary amount of $3,000 for an orange 1973
VW Super Beetle.

In the Army in 1962, I found that a $100 bill usually gave one lots
of choices at the local used car lots. I chose a 1951 Chevy for $50
and drove it away.

$2000 per semester for tuition with room & board at a top-level
university.

I paid $820 for my first year at Rhode Island School of Design in
1959. Tuition there now is higher than Brown University next door.

Blue Whitman coin folders at around 15 cents each. Banks that
occasionally had real silver dollars for wide-eyed young collectors.

Youre' lucky with the folders. The ones I remember were 35¢. My mom
worked in a bank in the 1950's and on Fridays she would bring home
20 silver dollars for me to date-check. I was only able to afford a
couple medium-toughies, but it was fun looking.

McDonald hamburgers at 15 cents, cheeseburgers for 19 cents.

The small 5-cent Coke bottles (around 6-3/4 oz.) from the machine
at the barber shop (75 cents for a "regular boy's haircut") and you
had to put the empty back in the partitioned wooden case or cough
up two cents for the bottle deposit.

Aren't those small bottles making a limited comeback today? I recall
the 5¢ bottles as well as the occasional high tech machine that
offered several different brand and flavor options. Tough choice
between grape and orange. Never paid more than 50¢ for a haircut
until I went into the Army.

Asking neighbors for their empty Coke and Pepsi bottles to redeem
the 2-cent deposits at the grocery store.

And last but quite possibly the best - the store clerk automatically
throwing a free churchkey into the bag with every purchase of a
$1.10 six-pack. If you didn't buy any beer they were 5 cents but
everyone already had a drawer full of them.

I always carried one of my own, as did most kids (er, young men) who
drank beer. A couple of Giant Imperial Quarts (GIQ's) of
Narragansett at 50¢ each were usually enough to do the trick,
whatever the trick might have been.

Oh, one more... In the 1950s, hearing from our elders that the
1950s, which we now regard as the "good old days," actually sucked
and the good old days of 5-cent bread, 10-cent gas, and 75-cent
steak dinners with all the trimmings already were behind us.

For my parents, starting out during the Depression, there weren't as
many "good old days" memories as I had.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Tuition for my first two semesters at the University of Illinois in
'77-'78 was $450 each semester (books another $150 or so). *My dad was
a grain farmer who was doing very well in those days and I had no
money worries. *The cost of everything plus some monthly allowance $$$
was $3,000 per year. *I bought several nice 1904 Liberty $20s for
under $250 in the winter of 1977-78 and sold them about eighteen
months later for a triple. *That was my beer and pizza and personal
library/books money for several semesters plus a new color TV.

While that tuition price may sound stiff to those who went through 15
years earlier, I can regale my many nieces and newphews with that
number nowadays.

My youngest sister (nine years younger) attended Illinois Wesleyan
(sic) University and my dad said that her 1st year costs more or less
totaled my entire four years at U of I.

Some of my earlier financial memories involve Nixon's horse**** "Wage
and Price Controls". *By then, I was old enough to notice that lots of
little things popped in price after the controls were lifted.

No matter how much anyone here, including myself, waxes nostalgic, I will
continue to proclaim that "THESE are the good old days."

James the Libertine- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Inasmuch as this country may need to depreciate the present value of
the currency by 95% or so, in order that we can have a fair chance of
servicing our collective public and private debts - I fear you may be
correct.

There are many good things today IF you can pay the freight or get
somebody to pay for you. For instance, the doctors worked on my heart
again earlier this week (two more stents on Wednesday AM and I walked
out of the hospital on my own less than 30 hours later) and forty
years ago I probably would have had a heart attack or two by now.

oly

oly wrote:
On Sep 25, 8:06 pm, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:
oly wrote:
On Sep 25, 7:02 pm, "Bruce Remick" wrote:
"mazorj" wrote in message

...

"oly" wrote in message
...
On Sep 25, 8:31 am, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com
wrote:
j-rod wrote:
oly wrote:

...
I can remember five cent first class stamps, but I might be
stretching it a bit to say that I really remember the five cent
candy bar. Even at age seven or eight (c.1967) we were just a
bit past that on the long march of U.S. monetary inflation.

I always admired the inventor fellow in the Scrooge McDuck
series - Gyro Gearloose or some name like that???

Huey, Dewey and Louie were a little bratty, 'tho basically good
boys. They were a little bit like Popeye's "Swee' Pea" - whose
the heck kids were they, anyway???

oly

I can remember my father paying 23¢ for a gallon of gas.

When I started driving is was already up to 30¢.

I remember when vending machine cigarettes cost 23c as well.
You'd put a quarter in the machine and out would pop a pack of
Camels with 2 cents change under the cellophane. The lucky
customers got one, maybe two, 55 doubled dies.

James the Non-Smoker- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Limited to certain upstate NY vending machines only, if memory
serves...
I wonder if the jobber who serviced those machines ever knew...

I remember those, at a time when I had never ventured farther
north than Noo Yawk City. I also saw them locally, farther south.
The pennies
always were shiny new ones but the ones I saw were common dates.
Since we're playing the Memory Lane prices game, I remember:

Working in a store in 1964 and selling cigarettes at 17 cents, two
for 33 cents for the "regular" size (Luckies, Camels), 18 cents
and 2 for 35 cents for king size and filter tips.

I rember buying "Wings" for 18¢ and some other obscure brand that
offered what looked like a Scotch tape mouthpiece. I lived in RI
where many of the 1955 DDO's were found. My dad found two for me.

Gas below 30 cents. Asking my father what "ESSO" stood for while
the attendant pumped our gas, cleaned our windshield, and checked
the oil. Dad having to specify "use the detergent oil" if it was
low.

I ran into some 15¢/gallon gas wars in Florida in 1965 when
convenience stores began adding fuel pumps.

Stamps at 4 cents, and IIRC, even the 3-cent era.

The nickel 1-oz. Hershey bar of the 1950s, and later around 1970
when they raised the price by cutting the content to 7/8-oz. -
creating a BIG stink from chocolate lovers.

My parents gave me 5¢ "babysitting money" to watch my younger
brother in the early 1950's. I was able to fill a small brown bag
with penny candies from the local mom & pop store for that nickel.

Driving my wife-to-be's new $2,000 1968 Chevy Nova, and later
plunking down the extraordinary amount of $3,000 for an orange
1973 VW Super Beetle.

In the Army in 1962, I found that a $100 bill usually gave one lots
of choices at the local used car lots. I chose a 1951 Chevy for $50
and drove it away.

$2000 per semester for tuition with room & board at a top-level
university.

I paid $820 for my first year at Rhode Island School of Design in
1959. Tuition there now is higher than Brown University next door.

Blue Whitman coin folders at around 15 cents each. Banks that
occasionally had real silver dollars for wide-eyed young
collectors.

Youre' lucky with the folders. The ones I remember were 35¢. My mom
worked in a bank in the 1950's and on Fridays she would bring home
20 silver dollars for me to date-check. I was only able to afford a
couple medium-toughies, but it was fun looking.

McDonald hamburgers at 15 cents, cheeseburgers for 19 cents.

The small 5-cent Coke bottles (around 6-3/4 oz.) from the machine
at the barber shop (75 cents for a "regular boy's haircut") and
you had to put the empty back in the partitioned wooden case or
cough up two cents for the bottle deposit.

Aren't those small bottles making a limited comeback today? I
recall the 5¢ bottles as well as the occasional high tech machine
that offered several different brand and flavor options. Tough
choice between grape and orange. Never paid more than 50¢ for a
haircut until I went into the Army.

Asking neighbors for their empty Coke and Pepsi bottles to redeem
the 2-cent deposits at the grocery store.

And last but quite possibly the best - the store clerk
automatically throwing a free churchkey into the bag with every
purchase of a $1.10 six-pack. If you didn't buy any beer they
were 5 cents but everyone already had a drawer full of them.

I always carried one of my own, as did most kids (er, young men)
who drank beer. A couple of Giant Imperial Quarts (GIQ's) of
Narragansett at 50¢ each were usually enough to do the trick,
whatever the trick might have been.

Oh, one more... In the 1950s, hearing from our elders that the
1950s, which we now regard as the "good old days," actually sucked
and the good old days of 5-cent bread, 10-cent gas, and 75-cent
steak dinners with all the trimmings already were behind us.

For my parents, starting out during the Depression, there weren't
as many "good old days" memories as I had.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Tuition for my first two semesters at the University of Illinois in
'77-'78 was $450 each semester (books another $150 or so). My dad
was a grain farmer who was doing very well in those days and I had
no money worries. The cost of everything plus some monthly
allowance $$$ was $3,000 per year. I bought several nice 1904
Liberty $20s for under $250 in the winter of 1977-78 and sold them
about eighteen months later for a triple. That was my beer and
pizza and personal library/books money for several semesters plus a
new color TV.

While that tuition price may sound stiff to those who went through
15 years earlier, I can regale my many nieces and newphews with that
number nowadays.

My youngest sister (nine years younger) attended Illinois Wesleyan
(sic) University and my dad said that her 1st year costs more or
less totaled my entire four years at U of I.

Some of my earlier financial memories involve Nixon's horse****
"Wage and Price Controls". By then, I was old enough to notice that
lots of little things popped in price after the controls were
lifted.

No matter how much anyone here, including myself, waxes nostalgic, I
will continue to proclaim that "THESE are the good old days."

James the Libertine- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Inasmuch as this country may need to depreciate the present value of
the currency by 95% or so, in order that we can have a fair chance of
servicing our collective public and private debts - I fear you may be
correct.

There are many good things today IF you can pay the freight or get
somebody to pay for you. For instance, the doctors worked on my heart
again earlier this week (two more stents on Wednesday AM and I walked
out of the hospital on my own less than 30 hours later) and forty
years ago I probably would have had a heart attack or two by now.

Three cheers for the team that made you whole again!

Your survival has obviously benefitted from medecine's state of the art, but
only as the result of your access to it. Now that you have been spared and
live on, I hope you will gain an appreciation for what the President is
trying to accomplish in health care reform. I have heard all I can tolerate
from the smug who have health coverage toward those who have it not.

James

On Sep 25, 9:56*pm, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:
oly wrote:
On Sep 25, 8:06 pm, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:
oly wrote:
On Sep 25, 7:02 pm, "Bruce Remick" wrote:
"mazorj" wrote in message

. ..

"oly" wrote in message
...
On Sep 25, 8:31 am, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com
wrote:
j-rod wrote:
oly wrote:

...
I can remember five cent first class stamps, but I might be
stretching it a bit to say that I really remember the five cent
candy bar. Even at age seven or eight (c.1967) we were just a
bit past that on the long march of U.S. monetary inflation.

I always admired the inventor fellow in the Scrooge McDuck
series - Gyro Gearloose or some name like that???

Huey, Dewey and Louie were a little bratty, 'tho basically good
boys. They were a little bit like Popeye's "Swee' Pea" - whose
the heck kids were they, anyway???

oly

I can remember my father paying 23¢ for a gallon of gas.

When I started driving is was already up to 30¢.

I remember when vending machine cigarettes cost 23c as well.
You'd put a quarter in the machine and out would pop a pack of
Camels with 2 cents change under the cellophane. The lucky
customers got one, maybe two, 55 doubled dies.

James the Non-Smoker- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Limited to certain upstate NY vending machines only, if memory
serves...
I wonder if the jobber who serviced those machines ever knew...

I remember those, at a time when I had never ventured farther
north than Noo Yawk City. I also saw them locally, farther south.
The pennies
always were shiny new ones but the ones I saw were common dates.
Since we're playing the Memory Lane prices game, I remember:

Working in a store in 1964 and selling cigarettes at 17 cents, two
for 33 cents for the "regular" size (Luckies, Camels), 18 cents
and 2 for 35 cents for king size and filter tips.

I rember buying "Wings" for 18¢ and some other obscure brand that
offered what looked like a Scotch tape mouthpiece. I lived in RI
where many of the 1955 DDO's were found. My dad found two for me.

Gas below 30 cents. Asking my father what "ESSO" stood for while
the attendant pumped our gas, cleaned our windshield, and checked
the oil. Dad having to specify "use the detergent oil" if it was
low.

I ran into some 15¢/gallon gas wars in Florida in 1965 when
convenience stores began adding fuel pumps.

Stamps at 4 cents, and IIRC, even the 3-cent era.

The nickel 1-oz. Hershey bar of the 1950s, and later around 1970
when they raised the price by cutting the content to 7/8-oz. -
creating a BIG stink from chocolate lovers.

My parents gave me 5¢ "babysitting money" to watch my younger
brother in the early 1950's. I was able to fill a small brown bag
with penny candies from the local mom & pop store for that nickel.

Driving my wife-to-be's new $2,000 1968 Chevy Nova, and later
plunking down the extraordinary amount of $3,000 for an orange
1973 VW Super Beetle.

In the Army in 1962, I found that a $100 bill usually gave one lots
of choices at the local used car lots. I chose a 1951 Chevy for $50
and drove it away.

$2000 per semester for tuition with room & board at a top-level
university.

I paid $820 for my first year at Rhode Island School of Design in
1959. Tuition there now is higher than Brown University next door.

Blue Whitman coin folders at around 15 cents each. Banks that
occasionally had real silver dollars for wide-eyed young
collectors.

Youre' lucky with the folders. The ones I remember were 35¢. My mom
worked in a bank in the 1950's and on Fridays she would bring home
20 silver dollars for me to date-check. I was only able to afford a
couple medium-toughies, but it was fun looking.

McDonald hamburgers at 15 cents, cheeseburgers for 19 cents.

The small 5-cent Coke bottles (around 6-3/4 oz.) from the machine
at the barber shop (75 cents for a "regular boy's haircut") and
you had to put the empty back in the partitioned wooden case or
cough up two cents for the bottle deposit.

Aren't those small bottles making a limited comeback today? I
recall the 5¢ bottles as well as the occasional high tech machine
that offered several different brand and flavor options. Tough
choice between grape and orange. Never paid more than 50¢ for a
haircut until I went into the Army.

Asking neighbors for their empty Coke and Pepsi bottles to redeem
the 2-cent deposits at the grocery store.

And last but quite possibly the best - the store clerk
automatically throwing a free churchkey into the bag with every
purchase of a $1.10 six-pack. If you didn't buy any beer they
were 5 cents but everyone already had a drawer full of them.

I always carried one of my own, as did most kids (er, young men)
who drank beer. A couple of Giant Imperial Quarts (GIQ's) of
Narragansett at 50¢ each were usually enough to do the trick,
whatever the trick might have been.

Oh, one more... In the 1950s, hearing from our elders that the
1950s, which we now regard as the "good old days," actually sucked
and the good old days of 5-cent bread, 10-cent gas, and 75-cent
steak dinners with all the trimmings already were behind us.

For my parents, starting out during the Depression, there weren't
as many "good old days" memories as I had.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Tuition for my first two semesters at the University of Illinois in
'77-'78 was $450 each semester (books another $150 or so). My dad
was a grain farmer who was doing very well in those days and I had
no money worries. The cost of everything plus some monthly
allowance $$$ was $3,000 per year. I bought several nice 1904
Liberty $20s for under $250 in the winter of 1977-78 and sold them
about eighteen months later for a triple. That was my beer and
pizza and personal library/books money for several semesters plus a
new color TV.

While that tuition price may sound stiff to those who went through
15 years earlier, I can regale my many nieces and newphews with that
number nowadays.

My youngest sister (nine years younger) attended Illinois Wesleyan
(sic) University and my dad said that her 1st year costs more or
less totaled my entire four years at U of I.

Some of my earlier financial memories involve Nixon's horse****
"Wage and Price Controls". By then, I was old enough to notice that
lots of little things popped in price after the controls were
lifted.

No matter how much anyone here, including myself, waxes nostalgic, I
will continue to proclaim that "THESE are the good old days."

James the Libertine- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Inasmuch as this country may need to depreciate the present value of
the currency by 95% or so, in order that we can have a fair chance of
servicing our collective public and private debts - I fear you may be
correct.

There are many good things today IF you can pay the freight or get
somebody to pay for you. *For instance, the doctors worked on my heart
again earlier this week (two more stents on Wednesday AM and I walked
out of the hospital on my own less than 30 hours later) and forty
years ago I probably would have had a heart attack or two by now.

Three cheers for the team that made you whole again!

Your survival has obviously benefitted from medecine's state of the art, but
only as the result of your access to it. *Now that you have been spared and
live on, I hope you will gain an appreciation for what the President is
trying to accomplish in health care reform. *I have heard all I can tolerate
from the smug who have health coverage toward those who have it not.

James- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I am lucky enough and my stent placer is one of the very best to be
found anywhere - and sadly, there will have to be a lot fewer pork
products and fried chicken in my future.

As for the politics - you know me, I am a deeply cynical Republican
operative who prefers the traditional center & right-wing folks in the
seats of power. Dyed-in-the-wool Conservative yes, but pragmatically
wanting the traditional WASPs and their fellow travelers in the
positions of power. Dogma is O.K., but holding the office counts even
more.

If the GOP had any political sense (and they don't seem to have much
electoral sense at the top at this moment), they would advocate
"Medicare for Everyone" (well, not for people who are in the country
illegally) and throw the health insurance/HMO/ Health Maintenance
industry *******s wholesale to the wolves.

My midwestern populist sense is that "Medicare for Everyone" is what
most people truly want. Americans want the equivalent of the English
"National Health Service", MOL. I say give it to 'em.

But this go around, I also believe that Mr. Obama isn't going to get
much farther than Billary did in 1993-94. The grid is very very
locked-up and the USA is ****ing away mucho dinero elsewhere with two
wars going on. Mr. Obama can't seem to make the obvious choice
between guns and butter, so I don't think he's gonna get a lot of
butter this year or next (and then there is the less than one year-old
"No-fault Wall Street 12 trillion dollar Monster Bailout" which he
didn't make but that he won't repudiate either).

If you ever have a heart complaint, get in to the doctor right away.
They can do a ton to help you, on a minimally invasive basis. One of
my cousins has had rather more severe problems than me, and his view
is that "the decision to get help is the hardest part - after you make
the decision, it is all easy after that". Don't wait to see a
cardiologist for the first time until after you've had that first
heart attack.

oly
The Deeply Cynical

"Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote in message
...
oly wrote:
On Sep 25, 7:02 pm, "Bruce Remick" wrote:
"mazorj" wrote in message

....
Oh, one more... In the 1950s, hearing from our elders that the
1950s, which we now regard as the "good old days," actually sucked
and the good old days of 5-cent bread, 10-cent gas, and 75-cent
steak dinners with all the trimmings already were behind us.

....
No matter how much anyone here, including myself, waxes nostalgic, I will
continue to proclaim that "THESE are the good old days."

James the Libertine

Perhaps it was too well hidden, but that was the point of my closing
anecdote. Tomorrow, today will be yesterday. Enjoy it while you can.

- mazorj the Philosophical

oly wrote:
On Sep 25, 9:56 pm, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:
oly wrote:
On Sep 25, 8:06 pm, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com
wrote:
oly wrote:
On Sep 25, 7:02 pm, "Bruce Remick" wrote:
"mazorj" wrote in message

...

"oly" wrote in message
...
On Sep 25, 8:31 am, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com
wrote:
j-rod wrote:
oly wrote:

...
I can remember five cent first class stamps, but I might be
stretching it a bit to say that I really remember the five
cent candy bar. Even at age seven or eight (c.1967) we were
just a bit past that on the long march of U.S. monetary
inflation.

I always admired the inventor fellow in the Scrooge McDuck
series - Gyro Gearloose or some name like that???

Huey, Dewey and Louie were a little bratty, 'tho basically
good boys. They were a little bit like Popeye's "Swee' Pea"
- whose the heck kids were they, anyway???

oly

I can remember my father paying 23¢ for a gallon of gas.

When I started driving is was already up to 30¢.

I remember when vending machine cigarettes cost 23c as well.
You'd put a quarter in the machine and out would pop a pack of
Camels with 2 cents change under the cellophane. The lucky
customers got one, maybe two, 55 doubled dies.

James the Non-Smoker- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Limited to certain upstate NY vending machines only, if memory
serves...
I wonder if the jobber who serviced those machines ever
knew...

I remember those, at a time when I had never ventured farther
north than Noo Yawk City. I also saw them locally, farther
south. The pennies
always were shiny new ones but the ones I saw were common dates.
Since we're playing the Memory Lane prices game, I remember:

Working in a store in 1964 and selling cigarettes at 17 cents,
two for 33 cents for the "regular" size (Luckies, Camels), 18
cents and 2 for 35 cents for king size and filter tips.

I rember buying "Wings" for 18¢ and some other obscure brand that
offered what looked like a Scotch tape mouthpiece. I lived in RI
where many of the 1955 DDO's were found. My dad found two for me.

Gas below 30 cents. Asking my father what "ESSO" stood for while
the attendant pumped our gas, cleaned our windshield, and
checked the oil. Dad having to specify "use the detergent oil"
if it was low.

I ran into some 15¢/gallon gas wars in Florida in 1965 when
convenience stores began adding fuel pumps.

Stamps at 4 cents, and IIRC, even the 3-cent era.

The nickel 1-oz. Hershey bar of the 1950s, and later around 1970
when they raised the price by cutting the content to 7/8-oz. -
creating a BIG stink from chocolate lovers.

My parents gave me 5¢ "babysitting money" to watch my younger
brother in the early 1950's. I was able to fill a small brown bag
with penny candies from the local mom & pop store for that
nickel.

Driving my wife-to-be's new $2,000 1968 Chevy Nova, and later
plunking down the extraordinary amount of $3,000 for an orange
1973 VW Super Beetle.

In the Army in 1962, I found that a $100 bill usually gave one
lots of choices at the local used car lots. I chose a 1951 Chevy
for $50 and drove it away.

$2000 per semester for tuition with room & board at a top-level
university.

I paid $820 for my first year at Rhode Island School of Design in
1959. Tuition there now is higher than Brown University next
door.

Blue Whitman coin folders at around 15 cents each. Banks that
occasionally had real silver dollars for wide-eyed young
collectors.

Youre' lucky with the folders. The ones I remember were 35¢. My
mom worked in a bank in the 1950's and on Fridays she would
bring home 20 silver dollars for me to date-check. I was only
able to afford a couple medium-toughies, but it was fun looking.

McDonald hamburgers at 15 cents, cheeseburgers for 19 cents.

The small 5-cent Coke bottles (around 6-3/4 oz.) from the
machine at the barber shop (75 cents for a "regular boy's
haircut") and you had to put the empty back in the partitioned
wooden case or cough up two cents for the bottle deposit.

Aren't those small bottles making a limited comeback today? I
recall the 5¢ bottles as well as the occasional high tech machine
that offered several different brand and flavor options. Tough
choice between grape and orange. Never paid more than 50¢ for a
haircut until I went into the Army.

Asking neighbors for their empty Coke and Pepsi bottles to
redeem the 2-cent deposits at the grocery store.

And last but quite possibly the best - the store clerk
automatically throwing a free churchkey into the bag with every
purchase of a $1.10 six-pack. If you didn't buy any beer they
were 5 cents but everyone already had a drawer full of them.

I always carried one of my own, as did most kids (er, young men)
who drank beer. A couple of Giant Imperial Quarts (GIQ's) of
Narragansett at 50¢ each were usually enough to do the trick,
whatever the trick might have been.

Oh, one more... In the 1950s, hearing from our elders that the
1950s, which we now regard as the "good old days," actually
sucked and the good old days of 5-cent bread, 10-cent gas, and
75-cent steak dinners with all the trimmings already were
behind us.

For my parents, starting out during the Depression, there weren't
as many "good old days" memories as I had.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Tuition for my first two semesters at the University of Illinois
in '77-'78 was $450 each semester (books another $150 or so). My
dad was a grain farmer who was doing very well in those days and
I had no money worries. The cost of everything plus some monthly
allowance $$$ was $3,000 per year. I bought several nice 1904
Liberty $20s for under $250 in the winter of 1977-78 and sold them
about eighteen months later for a triple. That was my beer and
pizza and personal library/books money for several semesters plus
a new color TV.

While that tuition price may sound stiff to those who went through
15 years earlier, I can regale my many nieces and newphews with
that number nowadays.

My youngest sister (nine years younger) attended Illinois Wesleyan
(sic) University and my dad said that her 1st year costs more or
less totaled my entire four years at U of I.

Some of my earlier financial memories involve Nixon's horse****
"Wage and Price Controls". By then, I was old enough to notice
that lots of little things popped in price after the controls were
lifted.

No matter how much anyone here, including myself, waxes nostalgic,
I will continue to proclaim that "THESE are the good old days."

James the Libertine- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Inasmuch as this country may need to depreciate the present value of
the currency by 95% or so, in order that we can have a fair chance
of servicing our collective public and private debts - I fear you
may be correct.

There are many good things today IF you can pay the freight or get
somebody to pay for you. For instance, the doctors worked on my
heart again earlier this week (two more stents on Wednesday AM and
I walked out of the hospital on my own less than 30 hours later)
and forty years ago I probably would have had a heart attack or two
by now.

Three cheers for the team that made you whole again!

Your survival has obviously benefitted from medecine's state of the
art, but only as the result of your access to it. Now that you have
been spared and live on, I hope you will gain an appreciation for
what the President is trying to accomplish in health care reform. I
have heard all I can tolerate from the smug who have health coverage
toward those who have it not.

James- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I am lucky enough and my stent placer is one of the very best to be
found anywhere - and sadly, there will have to be a lot fewer pork
products and fried chicken in my future.

As for the politics - you know me, I am a deeply cynical Republican
operative who prefers the traditional center & right-wing folks in the
seats of power. Dyed-in-the-wool Conservative yes, but pragmatically
wanting the traditional WASPs and their fellow travelers in the
positions of power. Dogma is O.K., but holding the office counts even
more.

If the GOP had any political sense (and they don't seem to have much
electoral sense at the top at this moment), they would advocate
"Medicare for Everyone" (well, not for people who are in the country
illegally) and throw the health insurance/HMO/ Health Maintenance
industry *******s wholesale to the wolves.

My midwestern populist sense is that "Medicare for Everyone" is what
most people truly want. Americans want the equivalent of the English
"National Health Service", MOL. I say give it to 'em.

But this go around, I also believe that Mr. Obama isn't going to get
much farther than Billary did in 1993-94. The grid is very very
locked-up and the USA is ****ing away mucho dinero elsewhere with two
wars going on. Mr. Obama can't seem to make the obvious choice
between guns and butter, so I don't think he's gonna get a lot of
butter this year or next (and then there is the less than one year-old
"No-fault Wall Street 12 trillion dollar Monster Bailout" which he
didn't make but that he won't repudiate either).

If you ever have a heart complaint, get in to the doctor right away.
They can do a ton to help you, on a minimally invasive basis. One of
my cousins has had rather more severe problems than me, and his view
is that "the decision to get help is the hardest part - after you make
the decision, it is all easy after that". Don't wait to see a
cardiologist for the first time until after you've had that first
heart attack.

oly
The Deeply Cynical

Normally I snip a poster's tagline, but in this case I elect to preserve it,
as I do not believe it applies. Your disquisition above is the most
refreshing thing I've seen from a conservative since the Eisenhower
Administration. After all, I, too, was a conservative until the
conservative movement became poisoned by Rush Limbaugh and the Religious
Right.

It doesn't take a genius to observe that the people who show up at the
townhall meetings, teaparties, and tax protest rallies, carrying signs with
the President's image overlain with swastikas and Hitler images and yelling
about how they don't want the government in their lives at all, seem to
always be those who have a secure healthcare plan. I have yet to see an
unemployed or "pre-existing condition" person speak out against some form of
guaranteed coverage, not a single one. It's always the "I've got mine,
screw everybody else" attitude that dominates, leaving a disgusting stink in
the room every time healthcare is scheduled to be discussed.

I might even confess to my Libertarian roots and state that, in my view, the
only legitimate role of national government is to provide services for its
citizens that they cannot possibly provide for themselves. National defense
is certainly one of these, as is some plan for dealing with contagions that
do not recognize state boundaries. Things such as an interstate highway
system certainly need some kind of federal oversight and support. A common
currency, for better or worse, helps us avoid the crazyquilt monetary
situation that existed for hundreds of years in the Holy Roman Empire,
impeding progress as well as commerce. It should be obvious to anyone who
is not already brainwashed by the radio and tv talkers that healthcare is
rapidly fitting itself into that same category, and that none of us, other
than the legislators themselves, who can vote themselves any benefit they
wish, is really secure in his position. In my view, politicians who
pontificate about the evils of socialism need to renounce their own
government-paid healthcare and pay their own way or go without like so many
of their constituents have to do, in order to have any credibility with me
whatsoever, and I don't care which party they represent. Median family
income in the U.S. being what it is, $12,000+ a year for private health
coverage (which neither you nor I could even get because of our PECs) is as
far out of reach for a hard-working, struggling family as is the cost of
building a road from the breadwinner's house to his place of work.

I have no problem with a non-white family in the White House, nor do I have
a problem with your preference for DITW WASP conservatives there, either.
What I want to see from the persons and party in power is positive results.
This does not include impeachments having to do with sex acts, half-cocked
declarations of war, or sanctimonious politicians telling us how much they
love the Constitution and Freedom and Jesus and then serving up the green
weenie to the poor schlubs who have been taxpayers all their lives and find
themselves with medical conditions that will cause them to lose their pride
and everything they have spent their entire lives working for.

If I never post here again, there will no doubt be many readers who rejoice,
having read the above. So be it. I stand by every word of it.

James

"Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote in message
...
oly wrote:
On Sep 25, 9:56 pm, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:
oly wrote:
On Sep 25, 8:06 pm, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com
wrote:
oly wrote:
On Sep 25, 7:02 pm, "Bruce Remick" wrote:
"mazorj" wrote in message

...

"oly" wrote in message
...
On Sep 25, 8:31 am, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com
wrote:
j-rod wrote:
oly wrote:

...
I can remember five cent first class stamps, but I might be
stretching it a bit to say that I really remember the five
cent candy bar. Even at age seven or eight (c.1967) we were
just a bit past that on the long march of U.S. monetary
inflation.

I always admired the inventor fellow in the Scrooge McDuck
series - Gyro Gearloose or some name like that???

Huey, Dewey and Louie were a little bratty, 'tho basically
good boys. They were a little bit like Popeye's "Swee' Pea"
- whose the heck kids were they, anyway???

oly

I can remember my father paying 23¢ for a gallon of gas.

When I started driving is was already up to 30¢.

I remember when vending machine cigarettes cost 23c as well.
You'd put a quarter in the machine and out would pop a pack of
Camels with 2 cents change under the cellophane. The lucky
customers got one, maybe two, 55 doubled dies.

James the Non-Smoker- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Limited to certain upstate NY vending machines only, if memory
serves...
I wonder if the jobber who serviced those machines ever
knew...

I remember those, at a time when I had never ventured farther
north than Noo Yawk City. I also saw them locally, farther
south. The pennies
always were shiny new ones but the ones I saw were common dates.
Since we're playing the Memory Lane prices game, I remember:

Working in a store in 1964 and selling cigarettes at 17 cents,
two for 33 cents for the "regular" size (Luckies, Camels), 18
cents and 2 for 35 cents for king size and filter tips.

I rember buying "Wings" for 18¢ and some other obscure brand that
offered what looked like a Scotch tape mouthpiece. I lived in RI
where many of the 1955 DDO's were found. My dad found two for me.

Gas below 30 cents. Asking my father what "ESSO" stood for while
the attendant pumped our gas, cleaned our windshield, and
checked the oil. Dad having to specify "use the detergent oil"
if it was low.

I ran into some 15¢/gallon gas wars in Florida in 1965 when
convenience stores began adding fuel pumps.

Stamps at 4 cents, and IIRC, even the 3-cent era.

The nickel 1-oz. Hershey bar of the 1950s, and later around 1970
when they raised the price by cutting the content to 7/8-oz. -
creating a BIG stink from chocolate lovers.

My parents gave me 5¢ "babysitting money" to watch my younger
brother in the early 1950's. I was able to fill a small brown bag
with penny candies from the local mom & pop store for that
nickel.

Driving my wife-to-be's new $2,000 1968 Chevy Nova, and later
plunking down the extraordinary amount of $3,000 for an orange
1973 VW Super Beetle.

In the Army in 1962, I found that a $100 bill usually gave one
lots of choices at the local used car lots. I chose a 1951 Chevy
for $50 and drove it away.

$2000 per semester for tuition with room & board at a top-level
university.

I paid $820 for my first year at Rhode Island School of Design in
1959. Tuition there now is higher than Brown University next
door.

Blue Whitman coin folders at around 15 cents each. Banks that
occasionally had real silver dollars for wide-eyed young
collectors.

Youre' lucky with the folders. The ones I remember were 35¢. My
mom worked in a bank in the 1950's and on Fridays she would
bring home 20 silver dollars for me to date-check. I was only
able to afford a couple medium-toughies, but it was fun looking.

McDonald hamburgers at 15 cents, cheeseburgers for 19 cents.

The small 5-cent Coke bottles (around 6-3/4 oz.) from the
machine at the barber shop (75 cents for a "regular boy's
haircut") and you had to put the empty back in the partitioned
wooden case or cough up two cents for the bottle deposit.

Aren't those small bottles making a limited comeback today? I
recall the 5¢ bottles as well as the occasional high tech machine
that offered several different brand and flavor options. Tough
choice between grape and orange. Never paid more than 50¢ for a
haircut until I went into the Army.

Asking neighbors for their empty Coke and Pepsi bottles to
redeem the 2-cent deposits at the grocery store.

And last but quite possibly the best - the store clerk
automatically throwing a free churchkey into the bag with every
purchase of a $1.10 six-pack. If you didn't buy any beer they
were 5 cents but everyone already had a drawer full of them.

I always carried one of my own, as did most kids (er, young men)
who drank beer. A couple of Giant Imperial Quarts (GIQ's) of
Narragansett at 50¢ each were usually enough to do the trick,
whatever the trick might have been.

Oh, one more... In the 1950s, hearing from our elders that the
1950s, which we now regard as the "good old days," actually
sucked and the good old days of 5-cent bread, 10-cent gas, and
75-cent steak dinners with all the trimmings already were
behind us.

For my parents, starting out during the Depression, there weren't
as many "good old days" memories as I had.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Tuition for my first two semesters at the University of Illinois
in '77-'78 was $450 each semester (books another $150 or so). My
dad was a grain farmer who was doing very well in those days and
I had no money worries. The cost of everything plus some monthly
allowance $$$ was $3,000 per year. I bought several nice 1904
Liberty $20s for under $250 in the winter of 1977-78 and sold them
about eighteen months later for a triple. That was my beer and
pizza and personal library/books money for several semesters plus
a new color TV.

While that tuition price may sound stiff to those who went through
15 years earlier, I can regale my many nieces and newphews with
that number nowadays.

My youngest sister (nine years younger) attended Illinois Wesleyan
(sic) University and my dad said that her 1st year costs more or
less totaled my entire four years at U of I.

Some of my earlier financial memories involve Nixon's horse****
"Wage and Price Controls". By then, I was old enough to notice
that lots of little things popped in price after the controls were
lifted.

No matter how much anyone here, including myself, waxes nostalgic,
I will continue to proclaim that "THESE are the good old days."

James the Libertine- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Inasmuch as this country may need to depreciate the present value of
the currency by 95% or so, in order that we can have a fair chance
of servicing our collective public and private debts - I fear you
may be correct.

There are many good things today IF you can pay the freight or get
somebody to pay for you. For instance, the doctors worked on my
heart again earlier this week (two more stents on Wednesday AM and
I walked out of the hospital on my own less than 30 hours later)
and forty years ago I probably would have had a heart attack or two
by now.

Three cheers for the team that made you whole again!

Your survival has obviously benefitted from medecine's state of the
art, but only as the result of your access to it. Now that you have
been spared and live on, I hope you will gain an appreciation for
what the President is trying to accomplish in health care reform. I
have heard all I can tolerate from the smug who have health coverage
toward those who have it not.

James- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I am lucky enough and my stent placer is one of the very best to be
found anywhere - and sadly, there will have to be a lot fewer pork
products and fried chicken in my future.

As for the politics - you know me, I am a deeply cynical Republican
operative who prefers the traditional center & right-wing folks in the
seats of power. Dyed-in-the-wool Conservative yes, but pragmatically
wanting the traditional WASPs and their fellow travelers in the
positions of power. Dogma is O.K., but holding the office counts even
more.

If the GOP had any political sense (and they don't seem to have much
electoral sense at the top at this moment), they would advocate
"Medicare for Everyone" (well, not for people who are in the country
illegally) and throw the health insurance/HMO/ Health Maintenance
industry *******s wholesale to the wolves.

My midwestern populist sense is that "Medicare for Everyone" is what
most people truly want. Americans want the equivalent of the English
"National Health Service", MOL. I say give it to 'em.

But this go around, I also believe that Mr. Obama isn't going to get
much farther than Billary did in 1993-94. The grid is very very
locked-up and the USA is ****ing away mucho dinero elsewhere with two
wars going on. Mr. Obama can't seem to make the obvious choice
between guns and butter, so I don't think he's gonna get a lot of
butter this year or next (and then there is the less than one year-old
"No-fault Wall Street 12 trillion dollar Monster Bailout" which he
didn't make but that he won't repudiate either).

If you ever have a heart complaint, get in to the doctor right away.
They can do a ton to help you, on a minimally invasive basis. One of
my cousins has had rather more severe problems than me, and his view
is that "the decision to get help is the hardest part - after you make
the decision, it is all easy after that". Don't wait to see a
cardiologist for the first time until after you've had that first
heart attack.

oly
The Deeply Cynical

Normally I snip a poster's tagline, but in this case I elect to preserve
it, as I do not believe it applies. Your disquisition above is the most
refreshing thing I've seen from a conservative since the Eisenhower
Administration. After all, I, too, was a conservative until the
conservative movement became poisoned by Rush Limbaugh and the Religious
Right.

It doesn't take a genius to observe that the people who show up at the
townhall meetings, teaparties, and tax protest rallies, carrying signs
with the President's image overlain with swastikas and Hitler images and
yelling about how they don't want the government in their lives at all,
seem to always be those who have a secure healthcare plan. I have yet to
see an unemployed or "pre-existing condition" person speak out against
some form of guaranteed coverage, not a single one. It's always the "I've
got mine, screw everybody else" attitude that dominates, leaving a
disgusting stink in the room every time healthcare is scheduled to be
discussed.

I might even confess to my Libertarian roots and state that, in my view,
the only legitimate role of national government is to provide services for
its citizens that they cannot possibly provide for themselves. National
defense is certainly one of these, as is some plan for dealing with
contagions that do not recognize state boundaries. Things such as an
interstate highway system certainly need some kind of federal oversight
and support. A common currency, for better or worse, helps us avoid the
crazyquilt monetary situation that existed for hundreds of years in the
Holy Roman Empire, impeding progress as well as commerce. It should be
obvious to anyone who is not already brainwashed by the radio and tv
talkers that healthcare is rapidly fitting itself into that same category,
and that none of us, other than the legislators themselves, who can vote
themselves any benefit they wish, is really secure in his position. In my
view, politicians who pontificate about the evils of socialism need to
renounce their own government-paid healthcare and pay their own way or go
without like so many of their constituents have to do, in order to have
any credibility with me whatsoever, and I don't care which party they
represent. Median family income in the U.S. being what it is, $12,000+ a
year for private health coverage (which neither you nor I could even get
because of our PECs) is as far out of reach for a hard-working, struggling
family as is the cost of building a road from the breadwinner's house to
his place of work.

I have no problem with a non-white family in the White House, nor do I
have a problem with your preference for DITW WASP conservatives there,
either. What I want to see from the persons and party in power is positive
results. This does not include impeachments having to do with sex acts,
half-cocked declarations of war, or sanctimonious politicians telling us
how much they love the Constitution and Freedom and Jesus and then serving
up the green weenie to the poor schlubs who have been taxpayers all their
lives and find themselves with medical conditions that will cause them to
lose their pride and everything they have spent their entire lives working
for.

If I never post here again, there will no doubt be many readers who
rejoice, having read the above. So be it. I stand by every word of it.

James

As long as our civic guidelines are being shaped by 530-something
politicians whose primary goals are getting re-elected and channeling as
much of our tax money as possible back to their own state, I can't see how
anything of substance ever gets accomplished. The idea of the overnight
overhaul of a massive health care system that already has had 60 years to
grow is like turning the vacant lot into a putting green in a week with
garden tools. Add to that, every pol seems to have his or her own pet
ideas. I have to wonder what their individual qualifications are to take on
such an effort.

I will admit that there is a little bit of the "I've got mine" attitude that
you despise in my own mind. Maybe it comes with age, but I try not to let
it dominate my view of things. I'm all for helping out those less fortunate
than me, but I don't claim to know how to do it, and I don't trust those in
power to come up with a solution either, especially one that they could
agree on given the increasing polarization.

But the thing that gripes me most is that I may not live long enough to
complete the set of National Park quarters. Perhaps a good insurance plan
will ease my mind.

Bruce Remick wrote:
"Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote in message

[time for some major snippage]

Normally I snip a poster's tagline, but in this case I elect to
preserve it, as I do not believe it applies. Your disquisition
above is the most refreshing thing I've seen from a conservative
since the Eisenhower Administration. After all, I, too, was a
conservative until the conservative movement became poisoned by Rush
Limbaugh and the Religious Right.

It doesn't take a genius to observe that the people who show up at
the townhall meetings, teaparties, and tax protest rallies, carrying
signs with the President's image overlain with swastikas and Hitler
images and yelling about how they don't want the government in their
lives at all, seem to always be those who have a secure healthcare
plan. I have yet to see an unemployed or "pre-existing condition"
person speak out against some form of guaranteed coverage, not a
single one. It's always the "I've got mine, screw everybody else"
attitude that dominates, leaving a disgusting stink in the room
every time healthcare is scheduled to be discussed.

I might even confess to my Libertarian roots and state that, in my
view, the only legitimate role of national government is to provide
services for its citizens that they cannot possibly provide for
themselves. National defense is certainly one of these, as is some
plan for dealing with contagions that do not recognize state
boundaries. Things such as an interstate highway system certainly
need some kind of federal oversight and support. A common currency,
for better or worse, helps us avoid the crazyquilt monetary
situation that existed for hundreds of years in the Holy Roman
Empire, impeding progress as well as commerce. It should be obvious
to anyone who is not already brainwashed by the radio and tv talkers
that healthcare is rapidly fitting itself into that same category,
and that none of us, other than the legislators themselves, who can
vote themselves any benefit they wish, is really secure in his
position. In my view, politicians who pontificate about the evils
of socialism need to renounce their own government-paid healthcare
and pay their own way or go without like so many of their
constituents have to do, in order to have any credibility with me
whatsoever, and I don't care which party they represent. Median
family income in the U.S. being what it is, $12,000+ a year for
private health coverage (which neither you nor I could even get
because of our PECs) is as far out of reach for a hard-working,
struggling family as is the cost of building a road from the
breadwinner's house to his place of work. I have no problem with a
non-white family in the White House, nor do
I have a problem with your preference for DITW WASP conservatives
there, either. What I want to see from the persons and party in
power is positive results. This does not include impeachments having
to do with sex acts, half-cocked declarations of war, or
sanctimonious politicians telling us how much they love the
Constitution and Freedom and Jesus and then serving up the green
weenie to the poor schlubs who have been taxpayers all their lives
and find themselves with medical conditions that will cause them to
lose their pride and everything they have spent their entire lives
working for. If I never post here again, there will no doubt be many
readers who
rejoice, having read the above. So be it. I stand by every word of
it. James

As long as our civic guidelines are being shaped by 530-something
politicians whose primary goals are getting re-elected and channeling
as much of our tax money as possible back to their own state, I can't
see how anything of substance ever gets accomplished. The idea of
the overnight overhaul of a massive health care system that already
has had 60 years to grow is like turning the vacant lot into a
putting green in a week with garden tools. Add to that, every pol
seems to have his or her own pet ideas. I have to wonder what their
individual qualifications are to take on such an effort.

You're certainly within the mark there, good Fellow.

However, I'm not content to roll over and put four feet in the air. The
opposition to the current proposals have had over half a century to put
their plan into effect, yet did nothing. It's time to make a move. I won't
see the fruits, but my grandchildren might.

I will admit that there is a little bit of the "I've got mine"
attitude that you despise in my own mind. Maybe it comes with age,
but I try not to let it dominate my view of things. I'm all for
helping out those less fortunate than me, but I don't claim to know
how to do it, and I don't trust those in power to come up with a
solution either, especially one that they could agree on given the
increasing polarization.

Imagine the scenario in which your present pension and health coverage both
are suddenly taken away by political zealots. Then get back to me. Oh, I
forgot to mention, there are people in both the U.S. government and *your*
state legislature who are wetting their pants to bring that very scenario
about. And that doesn't include all the citizens who hate your guts after
being whipped into a lather by radio talkers.

But the thing that gripes me most is that I may not live long enough
to complete the set of National Park quarters. Perhaps a good
insurance plan will ease my mind.

Well, we certainly hope that you do live long enough to accomplish that
mission. Go ahead, buy that Dansco and start filling it. You'll be glad
you did!

James the National Park Quarter Collector