Remember When...?

My wife called me one morning to tell me that the price of gasoline was $4.18 (this was the Friday before Memorial Day, 2008). This is the highest so far as I can remember although while living in Sweden in the mid 1970s it was about $3.00 per gallon. The other day I heard that gasoline in Norway was $8.70. My senior moment arrived abruptly as I had just told my wife that the $4.00 wouldn’t be easily crossed. How mistaken I was. PS By the time you read this, $4.18 may seem cheap.

I remember when I was a child we drove from Michigan to Chicago. My father filled our 1937 Nash Lafayette with gas on the outskirts of Chicago, ten gallons for $1.00. Imagine. Apparently, the US has been one of the world’s industrial nations with the lowest priced gasoline for decades.

I remember gasoline in California in 1973 selling for about three gallons for $1.00 until the gas shortage months later pushed it up to over $1.00 per gallon if you could get it. I remember driving from Berkeley, CA to Los Angeles to visit my parents gambling all the way that we would find gasoline. Luckily, we did. And of course I remember WWII when we had gasoline rationing yet we survived. Now that my memory bank has been pried open, let me reminisce a bit about some things I remember.

I remember when people put on their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes to go to church and wore them all day. I remember when colleges and universities never played competitive sports on Sunday. I even remember a Minor League baseball player in my home town who refused to play ball on Sunday and was kept on the team.

I remember when a handshake between two individuals sealed a deal not to be broken for any reason unless mutually agreed.

I remember when we had one telephone in our home for seven people. I also remember the days when several homes shared one line and some were quite adept at hogging the line and being nasty when someone else wanted to make a call. And there were the mischievous kids too on the line.

I remember when I saw TV for the first time. I was in college and it was in the window of a store. Amazing black and white, 12 channels. I didn’t own a TV until after we were married when we had to put an ottoman in front of the TV to keep our year old daughter from trying to pet Lassie.

I remember walking to grade school, up and down a long hill, home for lunch and back again for six years, maybe kindergarten too. I also remember my first grade teacher after a long illness keeping me after school to catch up with the class. You know, she didn’t have to do that but she did.

I remember when Pearl Harbor was attacked. I was fifteen and patriotic and so incensed I wished I were old enough to join the military forces. Uncle Sam did catch up with me but I had to grow up a bit more.

I remember when I got my first computer, a portable weighing about 40 pounds. Now my six-pounder laptop can do far more than my first Zorba. Today computing is growing so much faster than I am I don’t even try to keep up.

I remember when I decided I wanted to go to college. I was in the South Pacific on a Navy APA  when Uncle Sam sent all Navy Reservists home by August 20th only to discover that all six colleges  were full. North Park said I could enroll if I found my own housing. I did, thanks to my dad. Soon after that, all Freshmen were required to live in a dormitory.

Yes, memory banks are wonderful inventions. Believe it or not, these memories can fuel an infinite number of senior moments -- if we only break into these banks.