Comments Made in the Year 1955...

[Marcia Moore]

Comments Made in the Year 1955!  That's only 55 years ago!

     'I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it's going to
be impossible to buy a week's groceries for $20.00.'

     'Have you seen the new cars coming out next year?  It won't be long before $2,000.00 will only buy a used one.'

     'If cigarettes keep going up in price, I'm going to quit. A quarter a pack is
ridiculous.

     'Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to mail a letter?'

     'If they raise the minimum wage to $1.00, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store..'

     '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.'

     '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.'

     '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.'

     '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.'

     '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 they'll be making more than the President.'

     'I never thought I'd see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric.  They are even making electric typewriters now.'

     'It's too bad things are so tough nowadays.  I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet.'

     'It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work.'

     'Marriage doesn't mean a thing any more.  Those Hollywood stars seem
to be getting divorced at the drop of a hat.'

     'I'm afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business.'

     'The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on.'

     'There is no sense going for a weekend.  It costs nearly $15.00 a night to stay in a hotel.'

     'No one can afford to be sick anymore.  At $35.00 a day in the hospital it's too rich for my blood.'

     'If they think I'll pay 50 cents for a hair cut, forget it.'

[W. Gray]

I recall from my grocery store employment days in the 50s that $5 worth of groceries would easily fill a standard grocery bag and have some room left.

Although the event was rare, two grocery carts heaping with food stuffs was a $50 order—and we thought these folks were either rich or stocking up for an atomic war.

I believe that over my ten year span in the grocery business, I only once checked someone out who had a $75 order.

I can also remember people complaining about the price of a 23 cent loaf of bread and the 37 cent cost of a half gallon of milk going up.

It seems to me that the eighteen months coinciding with the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58 was the time of "exploding" grocery prices.

[larryJ]

Adding to this, when I was in high school I worked in a gas station part time.  Gas was between .18 and .20 cents a gallon.  A dollar's worth of gas would let you cruise the main drag all night long.  During that time, I took a trip from SE Colorado where I lived to Denver.  In those days, gas wars were quite the thing with each gasoline company trying to attract more customers by lowering the price.  I bought gas in Denver at .14 cents a gallon  during one of those gas wars.  When I was in college in the early 60's, I drove from Greeley CO to SE CO almost every weekend.  I had two or three passengers all the time each paying me a dollar for the round trip.  That was more than enough to pay for the gas back and forth. 

Larryj

[frawin]

Waldo, Myrna and I compare Groceries "Then and Now" everytime we go to the store. I told a little checker the other day that what few groceries we had in the cart, around $100.00 worth, cost more than my first car. She was amazed. I have attached an ad from my Dad's store in Howard from 1937, I had to split it as it was to big for my scanner. Also attached is an ad from brother Neil's store , this ad is from 1948. I will try to find one from Dad's store in Howard from around 1930.

[W. Gray]

Like Larry, I filled up at .14 gallon during a gas war. That is the lowest I can remember and got it at the One Pump Oil Company, the management of which always kept their gasoline at one penny less than the competition. Even at that price, you still received the service of checking your tires and oil, and washing your windshield.

I had a lemon Ford V-8 that got 8 or 9 miles per gallon and I made $1 per hour in the grocery store. I never once filled the Ford up because I had to watch the pennies in order to be able to court the girls.

Before the days of McDonalds in our area, we could go to the Golden Point drive-in and get a hamburger for ten cents and fries for twelve cents. Cannot recall what the cokes were but a cold bottle at the grocery store was five cents.

If I wanted to impress a girl, we went to Pypers Place drive-in where they sold only very delicious pork tenderloin sandwiches for 35 cents and had curly q fries.

Frank, I had a 1934 Howard Courant ad for Winn's Grocery just a couple years ago, but it seems to have gotten away from me.

[twirldoggy]

At KU in 1967, the gas stations would have gas wars when they knew students were leaving town for a break or vacation.  It got as low as 19 cents a gallon that year (the first year I owned a car).

[W. Gray]

Some additional interesting information for the year 1955:

U.S. population was 166 million.

World population was 2.7 billion people.

Homicide rate in the U.S. was 4.5 per 100,000 people.

AFL and CIO merged to become the AFL-CIO.

Syracuse defeated Fort Wayne for the NBA championship.

87,000 people attended the first televised NFL championship at the Los Angeles Coliseum and watched the Cleveland Browns beat the Los Angeles Rams. Cleveland Rams management did not want to compete with the Cleveland Browns so they moved to LA in the mid forties and then in the 90s moved to St. Louis. They are now "thinking" of moving back to LA.

Oklahoma went 11-0 under Bud Wilkinson.

On the Waterfront was best picture.

Gunsmoke debuted without John Wayne but with James Arness.

70 mm film replaced 35mm film, at least in some theaters for Oklahoma!

Fiber optics were invented.

Albert Einstein and Carmen Miranda died.

There was no Nobel Peace Prize awarded (which would have been appropriate 54 years later)

The US began sending aid of $216 million to South Vietnam, which had come into existence only the previous year.

The National budget was $68.4 billion.

The National debt was $274 billion.

Postage stamp was 3 cents.

West Germany became a sovereign state.

Churchill resigned.

Rosa Parks would not move to the rear of the bus.

Argentina exiled "Mr. Eva Peron," following her death three years earlier.

Georgi Malenkov became the premier of the Soviet Union.

The East Bloc's answer to NATO, the Warsaw Pact, came into being.

Eisenhower suffered a heart attack playing golf in Denver and recuperated by spending a couple months at the massive Army General Hospital in what is now Aurora, Colorado. That hospital was closed as a military facility in the 90s and is now part of a private giant multi-billion dollar medical complex.

Dow Jones was at 487.

[Diane Amberg]

 I was 10 in 1955 and I remember a really big deal being made of the President's heart attack. There was a big article in Life magazine about it and people wondered if he would have to resign.

[W. Gray]

This Army hospital, called Fitzsimmons, was where Eisenhower stayed recuperating from his heart attack. He got to the hospital late at night in a car driven by Mamie. He occupied an "apartment" on the eighth floor for two months.

It was built in 1941. I had an appointment there once with an army doctor but I cannot remember what it was about. The hospital was closed in 1994 as part of the vast DoD base closings that took place during the 90s.





This is the multi-billion dollar hospital complex surrounding the old Fitzsimmons army hospital, which is just left of center. It was totally gutted inside and rebuilt.

The gray buildings in the foreground are a rendering of an $800 million dollar VA Hospital. Construction started earlier this year.

The commuter rail in front of the VA hospital is still about five miles away.

More hospitals have been added since this concept rendering was made and more hospitals are coming. This is one heck of a medical complex situated on 513 acres.

[W. Gray]

Additional items for 1955:

The World Series was broadcast in color for the first time.

The Dumont Television Network was barely hanging on having only eight programs to air. It was squeezed out by the Big Three in 1956.

Elvis Presley was on  TV for the first time, although only locally in Louisiana.

Commercial television started in the U.K.

Benny Hill Show debuted in Britain.

Honey Mooners weekly program premiered.

Mickey Mouse Club premiered.

Jungle Jim and Cheyenne premiered.

Bad Day at Black Rock was released to theaters.

USS Nautilus, first atomic submarine sets sail.

Cordell Hull dies.

Richard J. Dailey became mayor of Chicago.

H&R Block tax company formed.

7.2 million car sales in U.S. and only 52,000 are imported.

Chevrolet introduces its V-8.

Ford Thunderbird released.

Eisenhower created the Interstate highway system.

Boeing introduced the 707, which at the time was called the Dash 80.

Peter Pan was broadcast on TV with Mary Martin as Peter Pan. It sure did not replace the cartoon.

Captain Kangaroo, i.e., Clara Belle the Clown, kids program begins.

Disneyland opened.

Brooklyn Dodgers win their first World Series but that did not keep them from moving to LA.

Crest toothpaste introduced in the super markets.

Coke name used officially for the first time at Coca Cola.

Ray Kroc starts McDonalds.

Bell Telephone builds the first computer using transistors.

London scientists determine a link between asbestos and lung cancer.

Tractors outnumber horses for the first time.

Tappan introduces the first micro wave oven.

Salk polio vaccine introduced and I took it orally either in 1956 in a sugar cube. Originally, the vaccine was injected.

Ann Landers introduced her column