By Rosie Moore
I have a child who was born in 1955. I don’t think he/she will mind me discussing their age, he/she lives up North, but the year 1955 brings back numerous memories. Here are some comments that were made in that year:
I’ll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it’s going to be impossible to buy a week’s groceries for $20!
Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won’t be long before $2000 will only buy a used car.
If cigarettes keep going up in price, I’m going to quit. A quarter a pack is ridiculous.
Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to mail a letter?
If they raise the minimum wage to $1, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store.
When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 29 cents a gallon? Guess we’d be better off leaving the car in the garage.
Kids today are impossible. Those duck tail haircuts make it impossible to stay groomed. Next things you know boys will be wearing their hair as long as the girls.
I’m afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying “damn” in “Gone With the Wind,” it seems every new movie has “hell” or “damn” in it.
The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on.
No one can afford to be sick any more. $35 a day in the hospital is too rich for my blood.
Well, you get the general idea of life back then. We grumbled and growled about everything but look where we are now.
I blame this vicious circle on the Industrial Revolution which began over a century ago when production of goods moved from home businesses, where products were generally crafted by hand, to machine-aided production in factories. It really started when Samuel Slater brought new manufacturing technologies from England and founded the first U.S. cotton mill in Beverly, Massachusetts.
And so it began. Each generation saw prices rise in every area of life. The salaries sometimes didn’t rise along with the commodities but people managed to survive. Can you imagine people fifty years from now exclaiming, “Well, back in my day, houses rented for $1,000, cars were around $20,000, a loaf of bread only $3.00”—-Well, most of us won’t be around then, but our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be. Pity them!
Thought for the day: Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences.
Robert Louis Stevenson.
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