Bargains? When Did This Stuff Get So Expensive?

When I was a kid it fascinated me to hear parents and grandparents lament the cost of most everything.   It seemed as if these stories of complete dinners costing $1.49, homes less than $5,000 and cars being driven off showroom floors for hundreds not thousands of dollars were pure apocrypha.  Never would I be caught complaining of the bargains "in my day" to whipper snappers in my future.

Well, here I am with seventy years of road behind me and almost daily the cost comparisons of what seem like only a few years ago and today slap me upside my old grey head.  Some prices appear to be in line and a few items--if memory serves--have become real bargains.  Clothing, for example, seems reasonable.  No doubt this is because most of what we wear is manufactured in international backwaters where labor is cheap.  On the other hand I do believe most of us who have attained "senior" status find that cars and hotel/motel rooms loom large in the "when did they get so expensive?" department.  My first house cost $27,500 in 1973 and today that won't snag a halfway decent car.  Of course automobiles today are light years superior in all respects when compared to 1973 tin .  Motels and hotels?  Debatable.

Motel $50

Motel 6 was Motel 6 because it cost $6 to stay there in 1962 when the first one opened in Santa Barbara, California.  That works out to roughly $50 in today's dollars and for whatever reason that doesn't appear to make sense.  Depending on where you are, the average bill for a motel or hotel with the basic amenities (see indoor plumbing) runs around $100 per night today.  Naturally cities like New York and L.A. are considerably higher and destinations such as Cat's Ass, Nebraska, Frozen Monkey, Montana and Cain't Read, Kentucky far less.

It's mere conjecture on my part but I do believe, because we largely travel by air these days, that hotels get more of our business than motels.  Motels hark back to the days when the only kind of trip most of us took was by car as we traveled to see relatives or to maybe to get to a vacation destination.  In rural and small town America there were many mom and pop motels along the main roads that often advertised their free TV (black & white) and magic finger beds that, for a quarter, would massage away your road weariness.  

"Look kids!  This motel even has a playground!"

Car travel with my parents was always contentious.  My father insisted on "making good time" and wanted only to stop for gas.  Mom, on the other hand, preferred a leisurely journey and wanted to stop frequently for meals and potty breaks.  She would grumble as she made and packed sandwiches for the cooler dad would jam into the backseat to separate my brother and me.  The fights over snacks and sandwiches between the two of us invited threats to pull over and "fix" the problem by the man in the driver's seat however "making time" was paramount.  He kept his foot on the accelerator, fired up another Camel and rolled on.  As the sun began to set there were increasingly insistent requests from mom to find a "nice motel" for the night.  Dad would turn up the ballgame and flick on the headlights as he said, "Don't worry.  We'll find a nice place soon...a really nice place."  Mom would point out that there were more and more NO VACANCY lights coming to life as we passed another motel.  I always knew we were in trouble when dad started paying attention to potential places to stay with a worried look on his face but, by then, it was usually too late.  We'd wind up at some motel that had a broken Coke machine, rusted metal lawn chairs in front of every room or, worse yet, consisting of some rustic "cabins" that hadn't been refurbished since the Truman administration.  Dad would always try to punch it up by pointing out how good the beds looked and how lucky we were to have that "sanitized for your protection" strip deployed over the toilet seat and bathroom glasses that were wrapped in some kind of paper.  Mom bought none of it and would give him the death stare until mercifully sleep overcame us all.  Well, most all of us...

I wonder if there are still any sandwiches left in the cooler?  If Steve snagged the last one he's getting clobbered!

"Hey, this one has a vacancy.  We made good time! Great price too."