I had a big old beast that got about 15 miles to the gallon on the highway and about ten in the city I was young and dumb enough I would make a 16 mile round trip to fill up at that gas station specially because this car actually burned more oil than gas

and less in some places..Strange I cannot remember yesterday, but I can recall the 50s price of gas.

About inflation and what it means long ago.....................................

In the movie...It's a Wonderful Life..with Jimmy Stewart.& others, a pile of money, $8,000 is stolen towards the end...Movie made in theaters April 46..Now what was that $8,000 worth in 45 when the movie was made?

Guess what? ...About .... $100,000 in today's money...

People watching that today haven't got a clue as to the meaning of that $8,000. Yes, it sure was a lot of money in 1945..(I think somewhere in that movie it talks about $5,000 houses..but I am not sure)

to start my trip to Walla Walla to work in the pea harvest as a combine operator. If I recall correctly, regular was 13.9

plus I didn't come to the US til I was 14 average price when I first had a car was about 58 cents

my 1st car a 64 Corvair Monza 3 speed
whee !

wish i still had that car
✌🏼

I was 17 years old and fresh out of HS, in my first car... a 1960 Ford Galaxy 500 2 dr hardtop.

for six RC cola bottlecaps?

The show started at 1 p.m.

It started with 10 cartoons.... twice a year, 20 cartoon special.

Newsreel with Ed Herlihe.

Then the serial-- Flash Gordon Tarzan Superman


Finally 2 YES TWO features. Maybe Roy or Tarzan


All this would be over around 5:30, time enough for the folks back home to have their own matinee.

everything you remember, but often - yes - even a TRIPLE feature. The Rivoli in Toledo and its Saturday kid's matinee, is an icon in my mind.

Think 1959. We lived in an apt. complex in the Larchmont Gardens area of Toldeo, just a few blocks from the new Miracle Mile Mall and the new McDonald's (first in Ohio). I was 10, my little brother was 8.5 y/o. Every week we each got an allowance of one dollar. On Saturday we would hop the bus for a trip downtown. Round trip, ten cents. We watched a triple feature matinee show, usually at the Rivoli or Paramount theaters. Twenty-five cents for the show. Another fifteen cents bought a popcorn and a couple of boxes of candy (jujubes, good 'n plenty, milk duds, boston baked beans, dots, red/black licorice, etc. After the shows and a bus ride back to Larchmont, we then walked to Miracle Mile Lanes where we each bought 3 lines of bowling for thirty-five cents and rented shoes for another 15 cents.

A dollar in a kid's hands in 1959 could buy a lot of weekend satisfaction.

as old as you are, I do remember 35 cents a gallon for gas. And when I was making two bucks and change per hour, that seemed like a lot of money.

Today, we filled up both cars at the same pump, our local supermarket sells gas, and gives you money off for purchases of eligible products. If they allowed such credits on beer, I might not have to pay for gas at all! In any case, from stocking up over the last month, we had fifty cents credit per gallon on up to 25 gallons of gas. And the price had gone down to $1.84.9 so that worked out to about a buck thirty-five per gallon of gas.

Yes, we blew the wad with today's purchase, but with not really driving anywhere, that gasoline should last us quite a long time. It is comforting to know that if the power goes out (human beings make the power plants run) and we get a series of hot humid nights, we can spend several hours in one or the other vehicles in the driveway with the motor running and the A/C on to get some sleep, then it will not cost an arm and a leg to fill the tank back up. Way cheaper than a motel room that happens to have power someplace.

I was paid 1.73 cents an hour for factory work. Minimum wage then was $1.25 cents an hour. I recall that for a lot of workers that was a full time job. (they got more but it was not a lot more)

lived near enough to each other, in 1966, I was a kid in Merrillville, Indiana. Every year, I begged my father to take us to Chicago, to the Museum of Science and Industry, a collection of buildings left over from the 1893 exposition.

..My favorite exhibit..a model railroad..I think 60 feet long, 50 feet wide..or larger. You got to see that one to believe it. I haven't been there in 9 years. Lots of interesting exhibits. New ones, old ones. strange ones and more.
..I remember they had some kind of incubator, and you could watch chicks hatching live. Lots of eggs, and you would stand there for 10 minutes, and one would hatch, and there would be a brand.. new chick.
...They also had a coal mine that you could take tours through, farm exhibits, communication exhibits, etc. I started going with my family in the very early 50s..It was about 15 minutes from where we lived. In my opinion it is one of the great museums in the entire world. And yes, I have been to New York City, London, Tokyo, LA and other places.
..The Museum of Science and Industry is really one of kind. The basement exhibits are very special, and they also have a tour through a German Submarine from WWII..U.505..I guess it is still there. Hit the link below for more info...go all the way down to a bottom section of the link ...hit . .what's here you will not believe it.
.......................It is at the very bottom of the web site..right below "explore" hit ...what's here..
......yes, take a look if you have never heard of this place..please take a look

https://www.msichicago.org/

in 2014, all that stuff is still around. The German submarine is now housed in a building, the Chicago winters were taking their toll on it. Our tour guide in the coal mine was flabbergasted when I went up to him at the end of the tour, shook his hand and almost tearfully praised him for his encouragement of children to be fascinated with science, as I had been five decades earlier in that museum.

Yeah, gas was cheap back then, but the cars were such gas guzzlers you could see the needle move when you drove.

In rural Kentucky. Astounding.

When I left Calif 5 years ago, gas was close to $5.00 gallon. Equally astounding.

Was it on Rachel tonight? Talking about how much our air quality is improving with all the cars off the road.

...to filling stations and telling the attendant that he’d like “a dollar’s worth, please.”

replace all the gas used cruising so your dad never noticed. Unless of course he checked the odometer, which he did.