All We Need Is One Dollar!

I passed my Louisiana driver’s license test in 1961 at age 15, barely. The fellow who administered the test had to be close to 100 years old or at least that’s the way I remember him. He was very abrupt and had this scowl on his face like he was just looking for any reason at all to keep me from getting my license. (I believe he had one of those pocket protectors before we knew they were for nerds.) We got off to a pretty rough start. The car I was using to take the test was parked out in front of his office. After passing the written test, we came out, he checked out the car, and then he gave me the okay to begin the test. I was very nervous and once under the steering wheel, he proceeded to lecture me about all the ills of teen aged drivers. After what seemed like hours, he indicated we should drive. I pulled out but he immediately yelled for me to stop and pull over. As it turned out, he said I was parked close to a stop sign and that I should have pulled up a few inches and stopped again. After another lecture we continued and somehow by the grace of God he acquiesced and signed off on my test.

In 1961, the price of gasoline was 31 cents per gallon. I don’t think anyone ever even thought about gas mileage but there was one thing my friends and I knew for sure; if we could somehow come up with $1.00, we could cruise the night away. While that might make folks smile today because of what sounds like a very low price, let me be clear, it was not so easy coming up with the one buck we needed. Someone might have a quarter, someone else had maybe some nickels and pennies but adding up to the $1 was not easy at all. And, we didn’t have to worry about whether that was the right amount or not, it was, and we knew it, and without it, we would just as soon stay home.

Some of us did odd jobs that paid us a little and sometimes we had someone in the group whose folks had more money than most. If Charles Miller happened to be available we could always raise the money because he typically was given whatever he asked for by his mom and step dad. My mom always did the best she could but money wasn’t stacked up around our place where she was doing her very best to clothe and feed the six of us kids. While my memory isn’t that great I would not be surprised that on occasion I may have been riding in a vehicle being fueled by gasoline that had been obtained through a method called siphoning thievery. This situation, if it occurred, was very wrong but I do know that those who did it felt compelled to do what they did in the interest of keeping young teenage boys off the streets at night. After pooling our pennies, we may have had to settle for a pine float at the drive in, meaning a glass of water with a toothpick, but we were able to pull up beside a carload of girls and flirt with the best of them.

The other day I saw a picture from a war torn country in Africa of a man literally carrying a huge grass sack filled with their currency. The inflation rate had soared into the hundreds of thousands of percent and he was taking that money into a grocery store to buy basic provisions for his family. He had many stacks of paper money but it would not buy much at all. Back in the day, we had very little in terms of currency but if and when we could get our hands on a single $1 bill we could be assured of driving the night away. We may have had trouble coming up with gas money, but I couldn’t be more thankful for my upbringing, the simple and uncomplicated life we had, the security we felt, and the good times we enjoyed with the very little resources we had. That one dollar's worth of gasoline in 1961 adjusted for inflation would equal $1.98 today; therefore, at $3 per gallon we are paying about 65% more in real terms. I am fully aware of this each time I pump $35 to $40 of gasoline into my car. Have a great Thursday and try to limit your driving because that’s the only way I know that you can be sure to reduce your spending on fuel. ……..More later.