Does anyone remember 27cent cigarettes and 35cent beer and 27cent gasoline?

Question

I can also remember when as a child, I could go to the corner store with a note and money from my parent (s) for a pack of cigarettes and the clerk would give them to me. Wasn't a problem back then! Deposit on pop bottles; remember collecting enough pop bottles to buy a dime's worth of candy? And that dime's worth would fill the bag? Halloween parades were always at night and so was Trick or Treat. Oh yeah, and the stores didn't start decorating for the "holidays" two (2) months in advance. New cars remained under cover until delivered to the dealership for the "grand unveiling" of that year's new model, which btw usually didn't arrive until the fall! And back then, cars were very distinctive looking! Today you can't tell one from another. Okay, I guess I'm done ranting. I was just wondering if there were more people out there like me.

Answer 1

Hey, kid. When I was 13 and started smoking, you put a quarter into a vending machine, pulled a lever, and a pack of Chesterfields would drop into the dispenser. Inside the cellophane wrapping were your 2 pennies in change.

If you went to the A&P (supermarket) and bought their brand, it was 17 cents.

But, regardless of price, poison was poison. I had 1/3 of my right lung surgically removed in 1971. Haven't smoked since.

I went to the first "rock concert" at the Paramount in New York (indoors.... Fats Domino, Little Richard, etc.). My friends and I collected bottles and scrap metal to buy "spikes" so that we could enter our baeball team in the Little League.

"Harbor Lights" was Number ! on "Your Hit Parade" for a year and a half. A kid named Elvis Presley could be heard on the radio, singing "Heartbreak Hotel."

Trucks came around in the summer and sprayed DDT into the air to kill mosquitos. Naturally, we were warned to stay inside, but we kids found it irrestible to go out and run around in fog so dense that you couldn't see anyother person until after you already bumped into him.

In the post-World War II, Pax Americana, the newspapers were so pressed for news that they used to publish President Eisenhower's golf score. The really big news was that first-class postage was being increased to 3 cents.

A new (3 bed/2 ba) house in New Jersey cost "8,750." The United States had virtually no national debt, and a balance of trade surplus.

A few years after I was born, familes started having babies at a rate that hadn't been experienced in a century. The 76,000,000 births between 1946 and 1964 became known as the Baby Boom.

But, I really don't know nuthin'. The newest member of my Kiwanis Club is a 95-year-old who used to be the personal nurse to a president of the United States......FDR!

I'll bet that there was a time when she would have found it outrageous to pay a nickel for a Coke.

Answer 2

Yep! I was born in 1953 & I always bought cigarettes for my Mom with or withour a note! The bread was 25 cents a loaf & she used to complain that it was only 5 cents when SHE was a kid! A carton of cigarettes was about $5.00. We didn't NEED to save money for Christmas presents, because we had Blue Chip Stamps & Green Stamps that the grocery stores gave out when we bought our food. We shopped from the Catalogues & waited in line at the Catalogue Store & Showrooms! It was awesome & I miss the yearly "unveiling" of the Newest Car on the Market! Ed Sullivan was KING & Lawrence Welk was a must see for the entire family! Saturday morning was for kids only cartoons & Sunday was for Church & picnics! The neighbors could smack you & no one called the Police on them! We knew the rules & we knew what the consequences were if we broke those rules! We raked the leaves & didn't know what an allowance was, yet when we asked to go to the movies, our parents rarely said NO & even gave us an extra 10-25cents to buy candy at the drug store! I think one game of bowling was cheaper than going to the movies, wasn't it? Things get "fuzzy" after so many years of not thinking about them!

Answer 3

When I first went to Texas in 1968/69 they were having a gas price war and it got down to 17 cents. We Americans have been lucky, the rest of the world has been paying high prices for a long time. Just to add reality, it was not uncommon for a teenager to be making $1.85 an hour then.

Answer 4

All light beer, Zima, wine coolers, and those malt liquor drinks like Mike's Hard Lemonade are sissy drinks. Mike's is ok if you mix it with a shot of vodka. You need to dirnk a British Ale, a German lager, or a micro brew. P.S. Never put fruit in a beer.

Answer 5

Yep and three cent cokes, and going to the local public swimming pool with .25 which paid for the admission price, a couple of cokes and candy bars. Ahh, the good old days.

Answer 6

Me, Me, Me, bought candy bars for five cents, ate penny candy, one of my first jobs when I was eleven I sold soft pretzels door to door for two cents each. Popsicles were five cents, gas was twenty cents, reused oil was ten cents a quart bottle, cars were not inspected, school lunch in Jr High was twenty cents, no smoking or chewing gum allowed, also no long hair for boys, ( I got expelled my Sr. year for having a Duck As$ hair style, got my diploma anyway), Is this enough?

Answer 7

yes, around 1975