In the good old days......

[electra225]

My first job where I got paid was at a Cities Service gas station, in 1963. I got $1.25 an hour, premium money for a kid in those days. I worked eight hours on Saturday, and four hours each on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I cleared $21.21 per week. My budget was $5 a week for gas, $5 a week for date night, the rest in savings. Not optional. Grandma confiscated my paycheck to make sure this was followed. When I got a certain amount in savings, I get $2 a week for spending money, plus what they gave me for an allowance. The gas tank on my Buick had to be so low that the gas gauge was buried in the dashboard in order to get $5 worth of Super Shell in it, then I had to shake the back end to get all the air out to get that much in. Super Shell cost 32.9 cents per gallon, an astronomical price for a kid to spend. Dad's old six-cylinder Chevy would burn tractor gas or truck stop gas that you could buy 6 gallons for a dollar. My Buick wouldn't even start on that stuff. However......

I never thought I'd live to see the day when you could get $50 worth of gas in a Mini Cooper that was not on empty yet......

I figure it will cost $100 to enter the Buick in a car show. $30 for entry fee, $40 for gas the rest for hitting the concession stands. That is pretty spendy for someone on a fixed income.....

Mini "Twin Turbo Power" gas (premium) is $5.09 at the Circle K on the corner down the street. I bought it at Sam's Club for $4.09 the other day.

Our little town of maybe 2500 people had several gas stations. We had the Marathon Inn, on the north end of town, a truck stop. We had a DX station, another Marathon station, a Shell station, A Cities Service station, a Standard station, a Gulf Station, a couple of independents and an Imperial truck stop on the south end of town. They were all busy all the time. You could get a valve job or your engine overhauled in a gas station in those days. We washed and waxed cars, sold tires, almost anything you needed on a car except body work. There was typically six people on duty in the station I worked at on a Saturday. The boss and his wife, the wife did the paper work and took the money, the boss typically worked the drive. Curly and Tom were in the back working on cars, me and Dave were the grunts, we did about everything. We washed cars, delivered cars to customers, pumped gas, busted tires, you name, we did it. It was a great time to be a kid.

[hermitcrab]

The first oil embargo hit in the 70's and gas skyrocketed to $.50 ... I was outraged ....now ... I wish...

[electra225]

I bought a new Buick Limited in 1974. Gas was "up" to 46 cents a gallon after the oil embargo. My dad thought I had rocks in my noggin for buying a "gas guzzler" with gas at 46 cents a gallon. I remember when I first bought my first Mack. I had to run HARD to burn $100 worth of fuel in a day. There was a guy with a motor home at Sam's Club the other day who put $475 worth of diesel in. Yikes....

[walyfd]

My uncle had a '76 Town Car in 1979 when gas hit $1.00. He widened the filler pipe so he could get the regular gas nozzle to fit... in 1982, we bought a '77 Newport. It was GORGEOUS. It was the cheapest car we could find. Nobody was buying big cars then.

It probably got as good mileage as some of the new trucks that are all over today...

Tires I ordered for the '62 last March took 10 months to get here. I checked to see if they were offering the free shipping deal like last year... the tires went up $62 a piece!!!

[William]

I remember the gas wars we had at the gas stations around college. There were times I could buy gas for 19 cents a gallon. I'd settle for $2.19 right about now. It jumped to $4.29 in town as of yesterday.

Bill

[electra225]

Regular gas at Sam's Club is $425.9. Mini gas is $455.9. Diesel is $5.09. Across the street at the Circle K it's $4.59 for regular, $5.29 for diesel. I wonder if Tesla owners have to pay road tax? If so, when do they pay it? If not, why not? Not quite 8 gallons of premium in the Mini was $31.90.

[walyfd]

It'll cost more to mow the lawn than get a haircut this summer...

[electra225]

I can remember a time when you could buy 25 cents worth of gas and mow yards all week. I also remember a time, when I was working at the gas station, that they wanted $22.50 each for Goodyear Double Eagle tires for my Buick. That was a week's pay each. I ran the original Firestones until you could read a newspaper thru them. Perfectly good, even with the cord showing.....

[TC Chris]

Want expensive gas? Try the gas dock at the marina. They sell ethanol-free premium. There's no price competition when there's one gas dock in the river. The big powerboats measure in GPM, not MPG. You see these boats come in and drop a few hundred to fill up, then roar out to burn it all up making noise. Me, I wander over and buy 3 gals. about 4-5 times/year and watch the powerboaters drop big bucks. My other sailboat lives on a mooring, so sail it on and off the mooring. Gas is mostly for getting to ad from the launch site and the beginning end of the summer, so if I burn 2 gals a summer it's a lot.

But limited use like that makes the ethanol-free gas especially important. I learned the hard way. Yeah, I ca buy cheap gas from the gas station on the highway and the spend my weekend cleaning the carburetor.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

I buy alcohol-free premium at the pump in 6 gallon red metal portable tanks for the pontoon, as Chris says it's way cheaper than filling up at the marina. It's about $5.39 right now but we use only maybe 5 tanks a year, so it's not that much to worry about, and we keep it on our own mooring at the lake and on a trailer in the winter so there's no marina slip or storage fees. The sailboat is also on a mooring so no motor on that one, or the aluminum rowboat. I also use non-alky in the old cars, mowers, snowblower, trimmers, and it seems to work fine even after 6 mos storage. The big expense will be going the 300 miles each way from NY to VT, probably at least 6-7 times this summer. The Xterra gets about 20 mpg on a trip, not too bad.

[electra225]

I heard on TV last night that some thieves were drilling holes in gas tanks and stealing the gas. Catalytic converter thefts were the big thing until gas prices got so high. Seems like a hard way to get gas and fairly dangerous. What happened to the time-honored tradition of syphoning gas? Maybe nobody knows how?

[Firedome]

Probably pretty safe using a battery drill and draining it into a container, you can literally throw a match in a barrel full of gas and unless there's a lot of enclosed vapor it won't ignite.

[TC Chris]

I heard on TV last night that some thieves were drilling holes in gas tanks and stealing the gas. Catalytic converter thefts were the big thing until gas prices got so high. Seems like a hard way to get gas and fairly dangerous. What happened to the time-honored tradition of syphoning gas? Maybe nobody knows how?

My grandfather had religious objections to buying things on Sundays, so back in the late 1920s he was siphoning gas from one vehicle to put in the other and burned up the garage and both cars.

Gasoline isn't too dangerous but its vapor plus air are another matter.

Chris Campbell

[walyfd]

Remember when there were NO STORES open on Sunday? Or when stores and banks would be closed Wednesday afternoons?

Those were the good old days...

[William]

I do, does that make me older than dirt? And, to be perfectly honest, I miss those days.

Bill

[walyfd]

I'm 52 and remember those days. Shouldn't seem so far back but I guess it was.

[William]

It was, and you are a young man. I am 19 years your senior so I have almost 20 years more of the good ole' days to remember.

Bill

[TC Chris]

I do, does that make me older than dirt? And, to be perfectly honest, I miss those days.

Miss the days when you couldn't head to the hardware store for the bolt you needed on a Sunday? Are you kidding? I'm so happy to be able to get what I need when I need it. I'm 74 (74-3/4) and learned a while back that longing for the good old days won't bring 'em back. We need to find value and engagement in the present. My old cars and electronics are fun, to be sure, but their value is the pleasure they give now.

When we get too preoccupied with the past we can become grumpy old men, and nobody likes a grumpy old man. This doesn't mean we should all dress like teenagers because then we seem ridiculous, but the real secret of life is that it gets better as you get older, and we need to display that knowledge by enjoying life now.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

Perhaps. Life was lots simpler in the 1960's. Everybody had money. You could leave your door unlocked. Grandpa traded off Buicks that never had the keys removed from the time they left the dealership new. The only time he removed the keys at all was to unlock the trunk. Families went to church on Sunday. A man's word was his bond. If you stole something from, or cheated grandpa or his brothers, you could depend on getting a "good whoopin'". Grandma never voted. Such activity was "a man's doin's". Decent women didn't lower themselves. My friend Howard was a real life Eddie Haskell. If any meanness occurred in the neighborhood, you could bet Howard was involved somehow. Watermelons stolen, outhouse pulled over, mail box knocked down, that was probably Howard. His dad was a deputy sheriff and Howard himself served as sheriff of the county for almost 30 years. We'd get to go to the frozen custard stand in town Saturday evenings before Lawrence Welk. I got to run the power windows down on grandpa's Buick. We each got two scoops of frozen custard in a dish so we wouldn't mess up the upholstery. Remembering fonder days is one thing, living in the past quite another. I had the best childhood anybody could have, better than I deserved. When life gets too fast and I need a "safe place" for my mind to return to, I can't imagine a better place than where I grew up. This reinforces how grateful I should be for all the good things I've been exposed to in my life.

[TC Chris]

Remembering fonder days is one thing, living in the past quite another. I had the best childhood anybody could have, better than I deserved. When life gets too fast and I need a "safe place" for my mind to return to, I can't imagine a better place than where I grew up. This reinforces how grateful I should be for all the good things I've been exposed to in my life.

The wonderful thing about a good childhood is that it's likely to make the rest of your life so much richer. With my Mom's death and the need to sort through her many savings, we have had many opportunities to remember people and events. Almost 75 years ago, when I was born, my parents rented a small apartment in Durham, NC from Mrs. Pope, a kind lady. Mom often mentioned how grateful she was for that kindness when she was a young mother. Mrs. Pope sent me my first Christmas card and my mother saved it (of course) and it's framed and hanging near my kitchen door. But her kindness made my parents' lives easier, and that made my life easier. Kind and generous people have effects in others' lives that they probably never imagine. And yes, Greg, we need to stop and be consciously grateful from time to time, remembering those who have given us gifts--time, encouragement, teaching, guidance, maybe forgiveness. The best luck we can have is not being born rich or winning the lottery (look at the statistics on how big winners in lotteries spiral into disaster). It's encountering good people along the way, those who influence us positively and maybe step in to save our butts when we may not exactly deserve it. Speaking strictly for myself, of course....

Chris Campbell