#548: When I woke up

The key moment in growing up 4 me was the fall of 1970, when I finally realized what a radio was 4 & that music sometimes came out of it. In gradeschool I finally noticed my classmates playing 45-rpm vinyl singles at lunchtime, & enjoyed summa the music they played -- Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" with its great heavy-fuzz-guitar riff; Robin MacNamara's silly & catchy "Lay a Little Lovin' on Me." Wish I could remember what else they played....
But it was a whole diffrent world back then. When I started shopping 4 45-rpm singles 2 play on the record player at home, I found TONS of them, available at NE Dcent department store -- 77 cents was the usual selling price, tho you could find them 4 69 cents if you looked around. Oldies were available 4 as little as 50 cents if you kept your eyes open. You can't even buy a candy bar 4 that now.
Albums were $3.99 & up -- some were $4.99 -- but that seemed like a lotta $$$ 2 me back then. I was still a coupla yrs away from buying my 1st record album.
My price sense is still stuck around 1972. When I finally sorta started paying attn 2 the world around me -- in the summer & fall of '70 -- gasoline was 28 cents per gallon 4 Regular & 32 cents/gallon 4 Premium. & that's all the choices you got. It was major news when gas prices went up a penny or 2.
In that summer of '70, my family moved 2 Tacoma, Washington. My family 1st lived in yer standard 3-bedroom single-level nothing-special suburban house in South Tacoma, just a few miles directly north of McChord Air Force Base, where my Dad worked. Every day, sevral times a day, HUGE C-141 cargo jets would fly directly over the house, rumbling & roaring, seeming low enuf 2 reach up & touch, lining their flightpath up with McChord's runway just a few miles south. Xperienced my 1st-ever earthquake that summer & 1st thot it was a 141 flying REALLY LOW over the house....
South Tacoma Blvd., just a few blocks 2 the west of our house, was lined 4 miles with used car lots, trying 2 attract young military folks with Xtra $$$. Back then you could buy a RUNNING used car 4 as little as $200 if you weren't picky about looks, & a REALLY GOOD used car 4 $600. My Dad bought lotsa used cars cheap, either off the lots or thru newspaper ads, then fixed them up & sold them -- a '57 Chevy BelAir that he had repainted baby blue 4 $19.95! A yellow '62 Cadillac Coupe DeVille with the huge twin nosecones on the front grille. An olive-drab '57 Chevy Nomad stationwagon. My Dad now wishes he had those cars back -- & a score more that he went thru when I was a kid: White '65 Mustang, brown '66 Barracuda, white '67 Impala Super Sport as big as a boat. We had no idea how good we had it....
There were new-car dealers along South Tacoma Blvd., too. Back then a Dcent mid-sized new car -- a Chevy or an Oldsmobile -- would run around $4,000. Something sportier -- say a Chevelle or a Cutlass -- might run $3,500. Bigger, "classier" cars would run around $5,000. A Corvette'd B at least $6,000 -- & probly a lot more.
But compared 2 now, prices were cheap. McDonald's still had 35-cent hamburgers in Summer 1970, & 45-cent cheeseburgers. The Big Mac had just bn invented & was priced at (if I remember right) a scandalous 99 cents! I could eat 2 of them, a large order of fries & a chocolate milkshake -- & still want MORE! This usedta make my parents CRAZY....
Mom & Dad could take me & my baby sister out 4 dinner 2 a "real" restaurant -- or even the corner cafe -- & still have it cost less than $10. But that was big $$$ at the time, a real Xtravagance. We didn't go 2 restaurants more than 1nce a month -- & I was glad, cos restaurant food couldn't fill me up like McDonald's did. + if you ordered a burger atta real restaurant THAT'S ALL YOU GOT & it wasn't enuf. That's when I learned 2 order & enjoy salads....
I started looking at television (other than cartoons) fairly devotedly at age 10. In Tacoma, in the mornings we got the Seattle area's morning kids' TV icon J.P. Patches, at the height of his fame, brilliance & silliness in the early '70s. I can't remember much of what was on TV in "Prime Time," beyond silly comedies like THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY and THE BRADY BUNCH and HERE COME THE BRIDES and ROOM 222. It was a LONG time ago.... I know I was bored 2 death by TV news, & news shows like 60 MINUTES were an immediate channel-changer 4 me.
I got a mini-bike when I was 10 & followed my Dad on his motorcycle all over the hills across the street 2 the immediate east of R house -- the hills that still separate South Tacoma's suburban neighborhoods from the non-stop 24/7 roar of Interstate 5. Can't believe that in 40 years no subdivisions have sprawled across those hills, which R almost a mile across & a couple of miles long -- but we sure rode all over them, up windy dirt&gravel "roads" & thru the rolling woods atop the hills -- & sometimes practically straight down the steep trails that led back 2 home.
I didn't Xactly memorize prices -- or much of NEthing else -- back then, but the only way I can make sense of today's prices is 2 divide everything by 4. If gas is over $4 a gallon, & your dollar's really only worth a quarter -- then allowing 4 inflation, I guess today's gas prices kinda make sense. Can't quite stretch that 2 make sense of $25,000 cars or $200,000 homes, tho -- I can't stretch the inflation that far.
The 1st house my parents bought in Boise, Idaho in 1965 -- a 3-bedroom nothing-special ranch-style house with attached garage -- sold 2 them 4 $18,500 when it was brand new. When I went back home 4 a visit 2 years ago, the same house was in the newspaper with an asking price of $185,000. & it's still nothing special. Xcept 4 the tree my Dad planted in the front yard the 1st summer we lived there -- IT's grown 2 10 times its original size. It's freakin' HUGE....