PRICES

Well, it's happened. As of yesterday, we are now paying $3.01 per gallon at our local WAWA.
Why - I can remember..... (Oh, Lord! There she goes, reminiscing again!) when I'd go for a ride with Daddy, and he'd pull into the gas station. The pump was a funny thing with a big lollipop-looking thing on top that proudly proclaimed the price - 25c. Of course, those were the days of the penny postcard and the three cent stamp.

After my parents divorced, Dad gave my mother the princely sum of $100 a month child support, until I turned eighteen. No alimony. My mother was too proud. She was also virtually unemployable, being deaf, and with only a grade school education. Our rent was $80 a month. She worked in a laundry to supplement the child support. How on earth did she do it?

For one thing, kids didn't need $100 sneakers then, and none of us had cell phones or computers. In late August, Mom would take me shopping for school clothes. I'd get a pair of shoes, a winter coat, three blouses, three sweaters and a couple of skirts. That was it. And I was happy with it.

I don't remember ever being hungry. There was always bread (25 cents a loaf), and milk, and eggs, and peanutbutter. And we ate an awful (and I do mean AWFUL!) lot of tapioca pudding.
Ugh!

My father even gave me an allowance. A quarter a week. It was enough. Movies cost ten cents for the Saturday matinee, until the dreadful day when the government added a penny tax.

What do kids get today for a high school graduation gift? My mother made me a dress. My father gave me my first watch. No - that's a lie, because I did have a Mickey Mouse wrist watch at some point earlier.

Enough of this! I'm starting to feel like Granny, repeating herself, telling stories of the good old days.


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