A dollar's worth of gas
When I was a kid, my Mom worked for a distributorship that imported cars from England. MG's, Austin Healey's, Jaguar's, and Rolls Royce were the primary vehicles they sold, but there were others too.
Mom started as a bookkeeper, then became the controller, and eventually she was the vice president.
Naturally she got a 'demonstrator' vehicle to drive most all the time too. In the early years she usually had an MGB or an MGB-GT.
But in later years she really liked the Jags.
Yeah, I rode in those cars a lot, and even traveled some in a hugely expensive Rolls Royce a couple times.....they cost like $20,000 back then!
Gas was included with her Demo's, but only from one location there near the garage in Minneapolis, and since we lived on a farm near Buffalo, Minnesota, she sometimes had to buy gas.
I remember many, many times when she would pull into a gas station and tell the guy there pumping the gas to "just give me a dollar's worth".
I thought it strange then that she didn't have them 'filler up', but it's clear now, the price of gas then was about $.17 to $.20 a gallon, a dollar's worth got an easy five gallons....plenty to get back to the company pump with!
Well, I went to the gas station today and got a dollar's worth of gasoline......
BUT IT COST ME $20!
Why are we not mad as hell yet?
Mom started as a bookkeeper, then became the controller, and eventually she was the vice president.
Naturally she got a 'demonstrator' vehicle to drive most all the time too. In the early years she usually had an MGB or an MGB-GT.
But in later years she really liked the Jags.
Yeah, I rode in those cars a lot, and even traveled some in a hugely expensive Rolls Royce a couple times.....they cost like $20,000 back then!
Gas was included with her Demo's, but only from one location there near the garage in Minneapolis, and since we lived on a farm near Buffalo, Minnesota, she sometimes had to buy gas.
I remember many, many times when she would pull into a gas station and tell the guy there pumping the gas to "just give me a dollar's worth".
I thought it strange then that she didn't have them 'filler up', but it's clear now, the price of gas then was about $.17 to $.20 a gallon, a dollar's worth got an easy five gallons....plenty to get back to the company pump with!
Well, I went to the gas station today and got a dollar's worth of gasoline......
BUT IT COST ME $20!
Why are we not mad as hell yet?
Total Comments 4
Comments
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Cool cars!
Anyone tried to do a one-penny squeeze at the pump lately? Quickest squeeze-the-trigger-and-release I can get is worth a nickel... |
Posted 07-09-2008 at 02:47 by DJ Niner
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Interesting. About 6 days after you posted this, oil took one of the biggest, longest nosedives in history. Maybe you conjured up the spirits to save us. LOL!!
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Posted 10-29-2008 at 16:10 by LUVMYSIGP225
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Thanks guys!
I found a pic of Mom in a Jag XKE.....1963 vintage I think.  Butch |
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Posted 11-07-2008 at 14:15 by Butch
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Cooper was rightWhen I was a kid growing up in Southern California (back when it was actually a pretty conservative place) I had a job 30 hours/wk in a Gulf station. Had it all to myself for 12 hours on Sunday too, at $1.25/hr, and made $2.50 in my pocket from every oil change I did & all the salesmens' cars for Kraft Foods brought their business in. This is decades before speculating, price-fixing, and minimum-markup laws - it was an old capitalist American principle called competition. It was a different country then.
Gulf had 3 grades of gas: Regular, Half & Half, and Premium No-Nox. And during the peak of "the gas wars" those grades of gas were priced: 9, 10 & 11 cents/gallon respectively. I filled up my Honda trailbike for a quarter & rode hard for 2 weeks. |
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Posted 01-12-2009 at 06:24 by WIG19
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