After watching all of the latest Local, National and World news:
Walmart increasing wages by a dollar for the next two years -
Causes me to recall �the good old days�
During my elementary school days I received a weekly allowance of 25 cents. This included cleaning my room, taking out the garbage and cutting the lawn with a manual reel type mower. On Saturday afternoon I could see a movie for 9 cents, get a pack of 4 kits (candy) for a penny, and after the movie stop in a 5 & 10 cent store. I was lucky as many of my friends only got a dime.
At 11 years old I ran a small paper route in our neighborhood and if all of my customers paid, I would net $3 to $4 and I was happy as my granddad told me that with a family he worked 6 days a week for 50 cents per day.
At 14 I could get a work permit with restrictions, found a job bagging groceries at a Food Fair making 35 cents per hour. The pay was just increased from 25 cents as a new store named A&P was paying 45 cents and all of the young boys wanted to work there.
They had no problems hiring bag boys and stockers.
I remember the most popular item was bread and it sold for 15 cents per loaf.
In high school I drove the activity bus for all occasions and was paid $8 per month and got 2 academic credits.
When I went to spend time with Uncle Sam my pay was $72 per month but had free room and board with medical and dental. I bought a new car and my payments were $72 per month and no, this is not a mistake as I painted names in boots (required by the Army) for a dollar per boot and used my car to taxi my friends to town when we obtained a pass. This made me a little pocket money.
When seeking my first real official job I found that the hourly rate for all plants and offices was 75 to 85 cents per hour. I found a job on a 90 day trial basis that started at $1.00 per hour designing laboratory and bank furniture. If your work was acceptable and you became an employee, the standard yearly pay increase was $2.50 per week. At that time it was said that anyone living in a $10,000 home was rich.
We had no Unions to create picket lines and stress with the work places.
There were no racial problems ever as there where were very few persons or families from other countries. The only news cast was by radio (Gabriel Heater) or a short news reel at a movie theater.
Later in life I worked for a company with 180 employees. One of my best friends was from Spain and he was a department head. We frequently had lunch together and often discussed his family�s experiences when coming to this country. Before coming to the United States they applied for citizenship and his schooling included the English Language. He emphasized how hard the citizenship exam was. This exam included in addition to language, US Government departments and chain of command and some military questions. He said he had never studied harder in his life. The fear was not knowing what would happen if he failed this exam. About 20% of the company was from other countries but all were very proficient with English and no problems ever occurred.
If you are lucky enough to remember all of the above, then I know how concerned you can become when hearing the latest news broadcast within minutes of real time happenings.
Thank you for reading my blog.
LG Mayberry
