By Jim Heffernan
If you are a certain age (and I am most certainly of that
certain age) you can remember when things seemed a lot cheaper than they do
today, even making mental adjustments for inflation over the past five or six
decades.
I was reminded of this again the other day when I filled the
gas tank on my car for just under $50. At my age (I was counted in the 1940
census), I can remember when a gallon of regular gasoline went for about 28
cents a gallon, a few cents more for premium.
It wasn’t unusual (unusual? I did it all the time) to pull
into a service station and order a buck’s worth and get your oil checked by a
guy in a uniform provided by the brand of gas he sold – Mobil, Standard, Pure –
who also washed your windshield. You could drive for several days on that
dollar’s worth of gas.
This is not intended to be another one of those nostalgia
pieces that seem to be so popular on the Internet. “Remember when this…” “remember when that…” all implying that
things were better then -- then usually being the 1950s, which, if you are of a
certain age, you can recall quite vividly.
These thoughts (at a penny a piece) plied my mind as I
filled my tank, watching the numbers spinning up through $35, $40, $45, and
finally stopping at $49 and change. Almost 50 bucks for a tank of gas.
Fifty dollars is a benchmark amount for me. When I was about
10 years old, my parents gave me a brand new bicycle – my first and only. It
was a beautiful red and white J.C. Higgins brand bicycle from Sears Roebuck. It
was their most elaborate, and expensive, bike at the time – fenders of course,
carrier, case, light, horn – and it cost about $50. It seemed like a lot of
money to me, and it wasn’t small change for my parents either. But they got me
the bike.
The only trouble was I secretly wanted a Schwinn. Schwinns
were the gold standard of bikes in the minds of neighborhood kids, and some
models cost about the same as my J.C. Higgins. But, I’m glad to say, I didn’t
say anything to the folks; I gratefully accepted the bike they chose and rode
it for the rest of my childhood. Read on to find out what happened to it.
But first, we were talking about that $50 benchmark. Ever
since receiving my bike – it was 1949 – I’ve compared the cost of that bicycle
to other purchases that come to about that amount, even to the present day.
Like when I’m out to dinner and the evening’s check comes to $50 or more. “Cost
more than my J.C. Higgins bicycle,” I mutter to myself, or maybe just process
that thought. And you don’t get too many groceries in the cart for $50 either.
And now the $50 benchmark is breached filling the car with
gas. The other day when that happened, of course I was reminded of what it cost
my parents to buy me a shiny new bicycle with a light and horn.
We all adjust to the differences in the economy over the
years (I paid $150 for my first used car, for example, only half a dozen years
after I got the bike), but as the years go by I simply can’t keep myself from
comparing the cost of certain things today with what my folks paid for my J.C.
Higgins. I guess I always will.
Finally, I promised to reveal what happened to it. I
stripped it down to bare bones when I was in my early teens, and it got left in
the basement of my family’s homestead for years. Finally, when my own kids were
young, and the homestead was still in the family, I dug out it and all of the
parts I’d removed and brought it back to its original condition.
It’s hanging in a garage today, upside down on bicycle
hooks, ready to be ridden. And it only cost $50.
6 comments:
That J.C. Higgins worth a whole lot more than $50 now. Be glad you kept it.
Hey Jim- at the time your folks paid $50 for your bike, you could have bought a fairly decent "fishing" car for $50. It would have probably been a '38 Plymouth with four U S Royal "bald eagles" but it ran. In 1960 one of my high school buddies bought from McDonald Motors a '40 Packard convertible with 40,000 miles for $50.
Lesson: Your folk overpaid!
Larry S
Hi Jim........... somehow your blogs seem to always remind me of my dad! My best friend got a gorgeous new Schwinn blue and white bike when we were around 9 or so and of course, I was dying for one,too. My folks had very little money so my dad found (don't know where) an old square fender bike that was pretty beat up and fixed it up for me. He got some blue and white paint and decalled it to look somewhat like my friend's Schwinn (a very loose somewhat). I rode that bike till I started driving and loved it! Don't know what became of it, though.
Pat McClure
Great to get these responses. Yeah, that old -- 1949 -- fat-tire J.C. Higgins lives on in storage. I rode it a couple of years ago; my own kids have ridden it, and in a few years my grandchildren will be big enough to give it a spin. I know it has value now beyond that $50 purchase price, but I have no interest in selling it. It's fun to have in the family. Still, sometimes, in reflection, I think to myself, "If only it had been a Schwinn." Thanks for writing. -- Jim
Hi Jim
$50, that's what I paid for my first car. Actually it was $55. I thought I could pass it by my father easier if I said fifty. I was thinking about your column this morning as I managed to load $55 worth of regular gas into my car.
JC Higgins were great bikes I had one too. I didn't keep mine but thinking of it does bring back a lot of great memories. Like how I knocked myself out getting it. Really, out cold.
Erick H
Hello, Erick... Good to hear from another J.C. Higgins kid. My older brother had a Sears bike they called Elgin, essentially the same bike as the J.C. They switched nameplates after WW II, I think. My first car was a 1940 Ford Deluxe coupe, bought off a Ford lot in Moose Lake in 1956 for $150.. That model is a bona fide classic today; restored ones go for huge five-figure prices. Should have kept my car instead of the bike, although the old fat-tire bikes have some value now too. Thanks for writing. -- Jim
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