Forty Cents An Hour

[Pell Mell]

I was musing about how much things have changed in my lifetime. Of course I won't go into the world at large, just some little things that effect my daily life.

I started gambling at about 6 years of age. How? The candy stores use to have gumball machines that you put a penny in to get a gumball. These machines had some balls that were wrapped in colored foil. Some were silver or gold and if you got a gold one you won 5 cents worth of candy. They also had chocolate creams for a penny and if you got one with a pink cream you won 5 cents worth of candy. Then they had the punch boards where you used a key like tool and pushed through the board and could win prizes. All my pennies were spent trying to win prizes. That was just the beginning. lol

I started smoking at the tender age of 12. A pack of butts was .16 and you could also get 3 cigarettes for a nickel in the candy stores. Actually, a pack of Wings was only 11 cents. A White Owl or Philly cigar could be had for a nickel. There was a nickel deposit on quart soda bottles and most people kept the empties on the back porch. We mostly supported our cigarette habit by nightly raids of the back porches for soda bottles. Three bottles and a penny bought a pack.

When I started driving gas was .15 a gallon unless you bought Merit gas that was .11 a gallon. It seemed like for years the price of a gallon of gas or a pack of cigarettes were always equal. We use to race our cars out to the diners on the highway at night where for 50 cents you got a full size burger, a piece of pie and a milkshake and a nickel in the jukebox.

Then came the drinking! When I started a boilermaker was 35 cents. Those were the days. Of course I started out working for Western Union pumping my ass all over town on a bike for 40 cents an hour.

I wish I was still making 40 cents an hour

[Tom]

I remember when...

Beer - .35
Cigs - .35
Morning Telegraph - .50
Juke box - .10
Gas - .35
pinball - .10

You could have a hell of night for a couple of bucks!

[bigmack]

Originally Posted by Pell Mell

for 50 cents you got a full size burger, a piece of pie and a milkshake and a nickel in the jukebox.(

PM - If this is true, I'm building a time machine.

Tell me the burgers were tasty & greasy. The buns; fluffy with a little dust on top.

The shakes were thick, so you'd need a spoon. The pie was made by little old ladies without hairnets & the ingredients were locally grown.

And when you punched A7 on the Wurlitzer juke, it played Eddie Cochran's - Somethin' Else.

[Hoofhearted]

Originally Posted by Pell Mell

I started smoking at the tender age of 12.(

Pell Mell, what did a ticket to the movies cost back then ?

[Pell Mell]

Originally Posted by Hoofhearted

Pell Mell, what did a ticket to the movies cost back then ?

We had 5 movie houses and they charged different prices. The high class ones were a quarter at night.

We always went to the Strand on Sun. afternoon. It was 10 cents to get in but you got a dish for your mother. They would have an intermission and during that there was a game called LUCKY which was basically bingo. It was played with a card that you got when you went in. They had a board on the stage with white envelopes on it. I think there were 8-10 of them and they each contained money. You could win 1, 5 or 10 bucks according to which envelope you picked if you were a winner. I won 10 bucks once and that really sealed my fate.

Also, you got a card and when it was punched 9 times the 10th week was free.

We saw a double feature, a cartoon, a short, like the 3 stooges and a serial of some hero like Kit Carson and the news reel.

Before going in we bought a pound of pretzels for a dime so we could munch all day.

[jonnielu]

Originally Posted by Hoofhearted

Pell Mell, what did a ticket to the movies cost back then ?

I still laugh out loud when I remember the friday night that Dad discovered that the 27th Ave. Drive-in has raised the price of a double feature to $1.25.

He went around that ticket shack on two wheels hollering he'd be damned if he was going to pay $1.25 for the movies. Us kids were free.

jdl

[ArlJim78]

this thread is making me feel downright youthful. thanks Pell Mell.

[Robert Goren]

Originally Posted by Tom

I remember when...

Beer - .35
Cigs - .35
Morning Telegraph - .50
Juke box - .10
Gas - .35
pinball - .10

You could have a hell of night for a couple of bucks!

If you could come up with a couple of bucks. I remember when my dad got a raise to a buck an hour. I played penny ante poker and it was really penny ante, but price of a win ticket at the track has always been $2.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by ArlJim78

this thread is making me feel downright youthful. thanks Pell Mell.

I wish I could say the same.

Great thread, PM.

Boxcar

[Mike at A+]

Back in Brooklyn in the 50's we had 2 local movie houses, the Beverly and the Culver. I remember paying 40 or 50 cents. Double feature, short, news etc. Pizza was 15 cents a slice, cigs were 25 cents a pack, fountain sodas were 6 cents for a small and a dime for a large. Egg creams were 8 and 12 cents. A shake (or a malted as it was called) was 20 cents and you filled a big coke glass twice. We played a lot of stickball at the schoolyard and a bat was 50 cents and the ball was a dime. A Spalding (we pronounced it Spaldeen) was a quarter. We chewed penny bubble gum, either Bazooka or Double Bubble. There was all kinds of penny candies. Baseball cards were a nickel a pack. Chinese restaurants were few and far between as opposed to today where there are 2 on every block. Szechuan food hadn't yet become popular and chicken chow mein was the norm. Most domestic beer was a dollar a six pack and the only imports were Heinekin and Beck's. I spent most of my youth hanging out at the poolroom and it was 60 cents an hour to play. My first car was a '69 VW Beetle that cost under $2,000 new. We'd pile 6 people in that car and go to White Castle for burgers that were 8 cents each. Drinking and driving was common as well as other "substances" that were absorbed. When I think back at some of the sh*t we got away with, I know someone was looking over us.

[ArlJim78]

I remember with my allowance buying packs of baseball cards for 10 cents a pack. For a quarter you could get two packs of cards plus of course some bazooka joe or bubs daddy gum.

[Robert Goren]

Originally Posted by ArlJim78

I remember with my allowance buying packs of baseball cards for 10 cents a pack. For a quarter you could get two packs of cards plus of course some bazooka joe or bubs daddy gum.

I always thought the gum was misprinted cards dyed pink. At least that what it tasted like and there was no way you could blow a bubble with gum that came with the BB cards. I went straight from BB cards to Racing Forms. My brother stuck with the cards and got wiped out when their market crashed in the 90s. We both ended up the same way...broke.

[ArlJim78]

yeah that was some gum, brittle and tasteless, a real treat.

[NJ Stinks]

Great thread, Pell Mell!

I paid 35 cents for the Saturday matinee double feature in my hometown in South Jersey. I can remember cigarettes at 27 cents a pack and I used to pick them up for my Dad. (Back then a kid could buy cigs and nobody cared that a 8 year old might smoke one.) Since Dad was smoking 3 packs a day, I'm glad the store was just across the street! One time the store owner said Dad would save money if he bought a carton at a time. So I told Dad. He never did. I think Dad thought he was gonna quit. He finally did - 20 years later.

I also remember drive-in movie theaters costing $5 a carload.

MacDonalds' hamburgers were 15 cents each when they first opened up and cheeseburgers were 19 cents each.

[JustRalph]

Originally Posted by ArlJim78

yeah that was some gum, brittle and tasteless, a real treat.

They were ahead of their time.......it was a prescient metaphor for the players of today