My mom sent me this email.
REMEMBER 1957?
The following were some comments made in the year 1957:
(1) "I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, its going to be impossible to buy a weeks groceries for $20.00."
(2) "Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won't be long when $5,000 will only buy a used one."
(3) "If cigarettes keep going up in price, I'm going to quit. A quarter a pack is ridiculous."
(4) "Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to
mail a letter?"
(5) "If they raise the minimum wage to $1, nobody will be able to hire
outside help at the store."
(6) "When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday
cost 29 cents a gallon. Guess we'd be better off leaving the car in the
garage,"
(7) "Kids today are impossible. Those duck tail hair cuts make it Impossible
to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing their hair as
long as the girls,"
(8) "I'm afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let
Clark Gable get by with saying damn in "Gone With The Wind," it seems every
new movie has either hell or damn In it."
(9) "I read the other day where some scientist thinks it's possible to put a
man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they
call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas."
(10) "Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for
$75,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn't surprise me if someday that they
will be making more than the President."
(11) "I never thought I'd see the day all our kitchen appliances would be
electric. They are even making electric typewriters now"
(12) "It's too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married
women are having to work to make ends meet."
(13) "It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire
someone to watch their kids so they can both work."
(15) "I'm just afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a
whole lot of foreign business."
(16) "Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the Government takes
half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best
people to Congress."
(17) "The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously
doubt they will ever catch on."
(18) "I guess taking a vacation is out of the question now days. It costs
nearly $15.00 a night to stay in a hotel."
(19) "No one can afford to be sick any more, $35.00 a day in the hospital is
too rich for my blood."
This is an excerpt from an e-mail my grandmother sent my mother when she recieved this email.
Quote:
On the wages in 1957, how I remember. I was "wise" and said gas would never reach $1 a gallon, and we estimated our groceries at about $5 a paper bag full, and that was a full bag as sacks were much more sturdy and it included some cheap meat. Dad was working for the unheard of wage of $2.75, he's not sure, but granddad Litke was sure we should be rich and would tell us the wage he raised his family on. Of course when he was raising his family bread was 5 cents a loaf. That is why I never say to you kids you should make it great. But I guess we were rich, we bought a new station wagon and had a baby in 1958. However my parents helped with meat and eggs some, sent us all we could carry when we visited and I do remember we ate so much tuna casserole I could have screamed. When I started working at school in 1965 we got $6 a day but they had to cut our working day to 6 hours instead of the 8 as was against the law not to get the $1 an hour.