Anyone here remember going to the Gas station and getting a dollars worth of gas?

[Texas Dan]

In ‘75 I was a pump jockey and gas was $0.26/gal. When the oil embargo hit my gas station started limiting hours and there would be a quarter mile long line of cars waiting for me to open up the pumps. That experience started a lifelong goal of removing my dependence on gasoline, which I feel I have finally achieved with my Lightning and the other four EVs I’ve purchased along the way.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately because of my age and some recent medical issues I have had. If I pass away any time soon I’ll feel content knowing that I have help show the way for future generations that life can be free of oil dependence.

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[chl]

Yes, I do. If memory serves, a gallon was 15 cents when I'd ride with my dad to the ESSO station.
Movies were a quarter, and double-features! Popcorn 50 to 75 cents.
Frozen custard was a thing.
There were local drive-in restaurants with skating servers, drive-in movies, and roller rinks.
My older sister's dress had to be well below the knee in high school and no make up or stocking allowed.
A candy bar was a quarter as well, my brother had one in his mouth when trying to decide what to buy and swallowed it - in the ER there it was like a full moon in his stomach on the x-ray, lol.
My favorite candy was a Skybar.

There were a lot of downsides to my childhood days - schools were segregated as were lunch counters, swimming pools, and sections of the movie theaters.
We had drills in school for atomic bomb attacks.
Polio outbreaks still happened, the vaccine was new.
Public school classes were huge, it was the 'baby-boom.'

No seat belts in cars - my mom stopped suddenly one time and I bounced off the metal dash board in an old Chevy.

AC was a luxury and an expensive option in a car, as was an automatic transmission.
Window units in houses barely did the job in the hot muggy summer.

There was a lot of air pollution from tail-pipe exhaust, without catalytic converters, smog was a big problem.

Ads said it was healthy to smoke cigarettes!

I think we were one of the first on our block to have a TV set, a little screen, black and white picture, lots of static if the antenna wasn't just right, 3 or 4 channels. No remotes. Mickey Mouse Club every week.

My sister watched Elvis on Ed Sullivan while I annoyed her with my Lionel train set.
Then later it was folk music and Hootenanny, Peter Paul and Mary, Puff the magic dragon.
Then Jimi Hendrix.

My sister went to HS with Jim Morrison of the Doors here in Alexandria, she said he was a quiet boy into reading poetry. The Doors played the Alexandria Roller Rink when they were on tour. I saw them in the summer of 1967 there, on my sister's birthday. They arrived really late from a show in Baltimore, the Alexandria Police shut the very short concert down at some point, maybe because of the late hour?

Cars didn't have intermittent windshield wipers yet (read about the Kearns patent saga with Ford).
https://federalcourthistoricaledmi.org/homepage-inspiro/history/historical-cases/case-kearns/

When I was a teenager, gas was a bit more expensive, still under $1 a gallon, hair got longer, dresses got shorter, I rode a BSA motorcycle, sometimes got hassled by the Alexandria Police - my dad was one of the chaplains so now and then they'd recognize my last name and be begrudgingly nice to me.

Minimum wage at my first job was under $2 an hour (might have been $1.25), but you could buy a brand new car for $1000 or less. That ratio is long gone now.

Some things haven't changed - the roads are wider with more lanes but the traffic is just as slow as it ever was at rush hour into and out of DC. The Wilson Bridge over the Potomac river is still a draw bridge. It's part of the east coast I-95 north-south route and still a regular bottle-neck for interstate traffic.

But we have EVs now, new battery technology with sodium ions and nano-technology is coming soon, so things are looking up!

 

[Robert1380]

Yes, I do. If memory serves, a gallon was 25 cents when I'd ride with my dad to the ESSO station.
Movies were a quarter too, and double-features! Popcorn 50 to 75 cents.
Frozen custard was a thing.
There were local drive-in restaurants with skating servers, drive-in movies, and roller rinks.
My older sister's dress had to be well below the knee in high school and no make up or stocking allowed.
A candy bar was a quarter as well, my brother had one in his mouth when trying to decide what to buy and swallowed it - in the ER there it was like a full moon in his stomach on the x-ray, lol.
My favorite candy was a Skybar.

There were a lot of downsides to my childhood days - schools were segregated as were lunch counters, swimming pools, and sections of the movie theaters.
We had drills in school for atomic bomb attacks.
Polio outbreaks still happened, the vaccine was new.
Public school classes were huge, it was the 'baby-boom.'

No seat belts in cars - my mom stopped suddenly one time and I bounced off the metal dash board in an old Chevy.

AC was a luxury and an expensive option in a car, as was an automatic transmission.
Window units in houses barely did the job in the hot muggy summer.

There was a lot of air pollution from tail-pipe exhaust, without catalytic converters, smog was a big problem.

Ads said it was healthy to smoke cigarettes!

I think we were one of the first on our block to have a TV set, a little screen, black and white picture, lots of static if the antenna wasn't just right, 3 or 4 channels. No remotes. Mickey Mouse Club every week.

My sister watched Elvis on Ed Sullivan while I annoyed her with my Lionel train set.
Then later it was folk music and Hootenanny, Peter Paul and Mary, Puff the magic dragon.
Then Jimi Hendrix.

My sister went to HS with Jim Morrison of the Doors here in Alexandria, she said he was a quiet boy into reading poetry. The Doors played the Alexandria Roller RInk when they were on tour. I saw them in the summer of 1967 there, on my sister's birthday. They arrived really late from a show in Baltimore, the Alexandria Police shut the very short concert down at some point, maybe because of the late hour?

Cars didn't have intermittent windshield wipers yet (read about the Kearns patent saga with Ford).
https://federalcourthistoricaledmi.org/homepage-inspiro/history/historical-cases/case-kearns/

When I was a teenager, gas was a bit more expensive, still under $1 a gallon, hair got longer, I rode a BSA motorcycle, sometimes got hassled by the Alexandria Police - my dad was one of the chaplains so now and then they'd recognize my last name and be nice to me.

Minimum wage at my first job was under $2 an hour, but you could buy a brand new car for $1000. That ratio is long gone now.

Some things haven't changed - the roads are wider with more lanes but the traffic is just as slow as it ever was at rush hour into and out of DC. The Wilson Bridge over the Potomac river is still a draw bridge. It's part of the east coast I-95 north-south route and still a regular bottle-neck for interstate traffic.

But we have EVs now, new battery technology with sodium ions and nano-technology is coming soon, so things are looking up!

The good old days. They are long gone my friend, but not forgotten.

 

[Jseis]

Back in the 70’s Abbie Hoffman’s “Steal this Book” was a popular counter cultural guide . One interesting comment on cheap travel was harvesting the gas from gas pump hoses late at night by laying the hose down on the ground and draining gas ounces at a time. Now that gas is worth 2-3 cents per ounce!

I bought a copy of this book from a college kid on the square unloading possessions. Sure enough, I left it unguarded and it was stolen from me!

 

[21st Century Truck]

Yes, on my moped back in the late 1970s, going to see the girlfriend... a dollar of gas took that moped a looong way. One time, most of the way to Bennington Vermont where she had gone to college. Of course, a moped being a moped with its max speed of about 25 - 28 mph, I learned the old colonial New England roads pretty well haha.

 

[Bestword57]

I remember when gas was 33 1/3 cents per gallon. I guess that was so 3 gallons would be close to $1, and it stayed that way for a very long time. I was a kid, though, and time itself seemed to go on for an eternity.

 

[ZeusDriver]

Had some issues charging out on the road. The reason I bring this up is I can Remember when gas stations weren't open on Sundays, I worked at a station after school, There would be a mad rush Saturday afternoon to fill up for Sunday. I am in Hopes that charging will also change and be more available with better accommodations. I can also remember the big spenders coming in for a dollars worth of gas, I would ask if they would want me to do their windshield also?
Likin my Lightning...

Definitely. When I started driving, gas was often 19.9 cents per gallon.

Before legal driving age, I had purchased and restored a couple "basket case" motorcycles, and then started working as a paid VW mechanic while in high school. So I could find good deals on cars in need of a little work. My first car was a 1956 MGA, which I purchased in 1966 for $75. Getting it on the road required a tune up (I would file the points to avoid having to replace them) and a seal in the clutch master cylinder, which cost about 35 cents. For a total investment of $75.35, I had a fun little car to drive. 20 cents worth of gas would keep it going for about 25 miles.

 

[PDGJim]

When I was kid in the 50's my dad would buy gas 6 gals for $1.06 and get green stamps with his purchase. I do not even watch the gas prices since I bought Lightning.

 

[Mal106]

Yep, used to get a bit over 4 gallons for a buck. A big snickers was a nickle and I was making $1.25 an hour running a jackhammer or laying asphalt with all the overtime I could stand. I worked 12 hrs 6 days a week and was a rich kid. I quickly decided that was not a great life and shuffled off to college.

 

[woodsman]

1967 Hutchinson, KS gas war, 19.9 cents a gallon. Always had a gas war going.

As an aside, I had a friend who worked at a Texaco station in high school. My first checking account after a summer job got down to a 14 cents balance. He let me write a nickel check for a candy bar. I was standing there eating it when the owner came in and went through the register and saw the nickel check. He read him the riot act cause the bank charged him a dime to process checks and I got the heck out of there.

LOL, that's funny. You reminded me of the gas wars, I remember Dad driving around looking for the cheapest price.

 

[Highpi]

Well, I guess you still can, it's just not going to give you a whole lot.

 

[Effonefiddy Lightning]

In the mid 80S I remember filling up my VW Beetle with 10 bucks for a whole night of cruising. Good times.

 

[RLXXI]

I remember chipping in a quarter Fri and/or Sat evening with the rest of the gang so we could go do something close to illegal cruising the town chasing tail. 1 of the guys had a rich dad so he had a car, the rest of us schmucks were just poor but together we all had a blast and then some. Had no clue at the time just how easy life was back then.

 

[Maquis]

In the mid 80S I remember filling up my VW Beetle with 10 bucks for a whole night of cruising. Good times.

My first car in 74 was a VW type 3. I remember getting really bummed the first time it took more than $5 to fill it.

 

[bc1]

Cars didn't have intermittent windshield wipers yet (read about the Kearns patent saga with Ford).

But we had vacuum wipers. Every time I floored the gas pedal of my 57 Chevy in the rain the wipers would stop and I'd be driving blind till I let off the gas or long enough to shift gears. Wipers worked great at idle.

When I was young, mom had a 48 Plymouth and she bot a dollar's worth of gas every time. They washed the windshield and checked the oil and the air pressure in the tires as well after driving over the air hose connected to the bell that would ding ding.

When I was eight, she had a second evening job at the snack bar at a drive in movie. Us kids sat in the car and watched while she worked. The movie Dinosaurus came out and it was pouring down rain. Couldn't see a thing but had some string so I got soaked tying the string to the wipers trying to pull them back and forth by hand which didn't work of course. I went every night with her and saw it 7 times.

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