By Bob Ray Sanders
bobray@star-telegram.com
In last week's column, reacting to Beloit College's annual "Mindset List" about what today's college freshmen never knew (or have always known), I talked about memories of days gone by.
This year's Mindset List suggests that today's 18- and 19-year-olds think of LeBron James when they hear "LBJ"; personal computer, not political correctness, when "PC" is mentioned; and the online sales company, not a river in South America, when the word "Amazon" pops up on their computer screen.
I recalled things most first-year college students today can't imagine: 27-cent-a-gallon gasoline, 5-cent bags of potato chips, six hamburgers for a dollar, changing the dial of a TV set, playing vinyl records on the stereo and buying a brand new full-size car for around $3,000.
That column sent many readers back into their memories of bygone days where they conjured up fond recollections about the way things were.
Following are a few examples of what they remember.
John Jones: "I remember
8-cent-a-gallon gasoline, back in 1940. I remember one red light in Arlington and one in Grand Prairie."
Ann K. Ziehe: "Driving downtown with my mom for a day of shopping, parking in the Stripling's parking garage and get a treat of rock candy from the Stripling's candy counter and lunch at the Pink Rooster restaurant (also in Stripling's). ... Living with the background fear of nuclear attack, the nuclear-armed B-52s flying in and out, and my dad going 'on alert.'"
Bob Nelson (born 1932): "... rationing during the war. Sugar, meat, gasoline were all rationed. No new cars were produced from 1942 to 1946 (even if you could afford one). My father had a degree and worked for General Motors and worked in the accounting department. One time when I was in the hospital (1939), my father was asked his salary. He replied proudly, '$2,500 a year,' and the hospital questioner was suitably impressed, not only at the salary but that my father was working at all!"
Yvonne Ray-Wilburn (comments to a young cousin moving into a dorm at the University of North Texas): After explaining that she, as a black student, had to live in the black part of Denton in 1959, she said, "I went on to tell him how on the first day of our classes we realized that blacks could not sit at the counters around the campus to eat lunch. By that weekend someone informed us that if we went to the movie, be prepared to sit upstairs. Things got better real soon, because we organized and performed 'sit-in demonstrations' at every lunch counter where we were not allowed to sit. By 1961, every lunch counter was open to us without incident."
Frances Hafford: "I remember so well how our neighbors would share whatever they had: veggies from their gardens, fish when they caught [them] and even rabbits from hunting. ... We caught lightning bugs and made rings; let's not forget [the game] 'May I?'"
Ann Bastable: "Santa Land in the basement of Leonard's Department Store, with the scary rocket [monorail] ride inside the walls! Cotton candy and candy apples and miniature train display. ... Our Boswell Dairy 'milk man' delivering milk and juices. He'd bring them into the house and put them in the 'ice box.'"
Scott Wheeler: "I'm 47. ... I remember when Mom and Dad and I were in the State Fair Auto Show and saw the brand-new, groundbreaking Cadillac Seville (I think it was either the '75 or '76 fair). We all really wished we could have gotten one and were all stunned it was $10,000!"
Ed Smith: Remembers cashing in milk and soda bottles, collecting about 60 cents a week and riding the bus (for 10 cents) to the movie. "I'd go at 9 or 10 in the morning, see a double feature, 10 cartoons, a serial (all for 9 cents); 1 cent for popcorn, 20 cents for hamburgers and French fries and a free Fudgsicle at intermission. For 50 cents we had all-day entertainment and still money for the bus home."
Katie Swanson, 77, (laughing): "I remember all those things back then but can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning."
Bob Ray Sanders' column appears Sundays and Wednesdays.817-390-7775
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