08-17-2026, 05:50 PM
A great topic! The remember-whens of my life are something I look back on with fondness and with sadness.
I told Charlie a few weeks ago that I remember as a 10-year old in 1976 taking jaunts by myself or with my brother from my grandmother's apartment and shopping in downtown Stroudsburg with maybe $10 in my pocket and visiting a good hobby shop, a couple of department stores, a used book store, a music store and an outdoor store all within 5 blocks. I'd always come home with something and still have change in my pocket. Seems to me that a car model, a HO building kit, or a piece of rolling stock could be had for around $5 - $10. Back then I was into volume - probably spent way too much on Tyco and AHM rather than Athearn. There was also a Kaybee Toy and Hobby in the mall that had a set of AHM LVRR GP18's (one motorized, one dummy) that went for $39. I saved for a few months before I took them home. My brother and I were stamp colllectors back then and you could get an envelope (with a big plastic window on the front) of stamps from the Harris company for something like 69 cents. We'd pour over the envelopes at Woolworths every time we were in town.
And where did we get our money? Working for Dad. His going rate on anything was $1 per hour. Mowing, weeding, picking rocks out of the garden, splitting, stacking, cutting wood, helping him with his projects, painting, etc. From 1974 to 1984 that rate never changed. When I started working for an excavation guy for $4 and hour in '78, I was amazed how easy it was to pile up money. Back then the minimum age was $3.35 and it stayed that way until sometime in my college years.
Remember when you used to be able to go to McDonalds AND the bowling alley and still spend less that $15 for the evening?
I can't recall the exact "when", but service stations always displayed the price per gallon in cents UNTIL the price went over a dollar. A lot of stations just slapped a big old "1" at the edge of the sign.
I told Charlie a few weeks ago that I remember as a 10-year old in 1976 taking jaunts by myself or with my brother from my grandmother's apartment and shopping in downtown Stroudsburg with maybe $10 in my pocket and visiting a good hobby shop, a couple of department stores, a used book store, a music store and an outdoor store all within 5 blocks. I'd always come home with something and still have change in my pocket. Seems to me that a car model, a HO building kit, or a piece of rolling stock could be had for around $5 - $10. Back then I was into volume - probably spent way too much on Tyco and AHM rather than Athearn. There was also a Kaybee Toy and Hobby in the mall that had a set of AHM LVRR GP18's (one motorized, one dummy) that went for $39. I saved for a few months before I took them home. My brother and I were stamp colllectors back then and you could get an envelope (with a big plastic window on the front) of stamps from the Harris company for something like 69 cents. We'd pour over the envelopes at Woolworths every time we were in town.
And where did we get our money? Working for Dad. His going rate on anything was $1 per hour. Mowing, weeding, picking rocks out of the garden, splitting, stacking, cutting wood, helping him with his projects, painting, etc. From 1974 to 1984 that rate never changed. When I started working for an excavation guy for $4 and hour in '78, I was amazed how easy it was to pile up money. Back then the minimum age was $3.35 and it stayed that way until sometime in my college years.
Remember when you used to be able to go to McDonalds AND the bowling alley and still spend less that $15 for the evening?
I can't recall the exact "when", but service stations always displayed the price per gallon in cents UNTIL the price went over a dollar. A lot of stations just slapped a big old "1" at the edge of the sign.
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