Do the numbers on population,listen to the music. All that land that we knew little about ,free land

out west. How would you do it over. What did you pay for your education ,what was different. The college

lay out is the same , the sports are the same......there was always a place to play.....cheer leaders too.

Give us what stats you remember. What was the starting pay ,annual professional pay.

 

When I joined the Army in '79, my pay was $416/month.

I had previously been making that in a week.

 

It was available basically for the cost of fencing in the early 1950's. I would have avoided the areas used for H-bomb testing and mortgaged my soul to buy land in Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. Acreage in Oklahoma was also going for $0.10/acre, if there was no oil under it.

Unfortunately, I was only 10 in 1953, but I had an allowance of $0.25 per week and made up to $1.00 for mowing a few neighbors lawns. I would have been rich today!

John

 

What was the newspaper ,(Grit) all about....there was a lot of guys delivering it.

 

For a quarter as a kid I could get a coke, a candy bar, play pin-ball or buy a comic book and gas was 19c a gallon. My first real job was a water boy in the cotton fields of central Texas near the Brazos (Bremond and Calvert) river for few bucks a week. My family clan had about 600 acres that dated back to land purchased by the hard work of former slaves and share croppers. We were a somewhat strange group in the area being mixed race Black, Native American and Chinese (from the railroad workers that stayed behind in the area) life was hard but we owned our own land and never wanted or needed help from anyone.
http://www.austincc.edu/itang/sample_chapters/Chapter_One.html

I joined the Navy to escape Texas and have never really wanted to come back.

 

Thanks, nsaspook. Good read.

 

Thanks, nsaspook. Good read.

Every time I watch the opening in 'Blazing Saddles' I get a big grin because I know somebody did some research for the movie.
The guy busted for 'napping on the job' might have been a relative. As a kid I always wondered why we ate so much rice.
http://www.anyclip.com/movies/blazing-saddles/working-on-the-railroad/#!quotes/

 

Ha, I paid $1500/year tuition at a top state school. I just sent my kids off to a state school and I am paying $20k/year each (plus $10k each for dorm rooms).

 

Fifty years ago, when I started to college, we were on the quarter system. Tuition was $15 per quarter hour, so a 15-hour load was $225 per quarter. Of course, I was accustomed to working a 12-hour day during high school at a supermarket for $5 and a free lunch. I didn't borrow any money for college; it was pay as I went. Between working and getting into a little trouble, it took me 8 years to get a 4-year degree.

My best pay in high school was for cutting grass. I had a large yard that took almost a whole day to cut, but I got $15 for it. Once, when I was mowing, the landowner told me he was going on vacation and he paid me for that mowing and for the next one. I took the $30, went to the local pool room, and gambled it all away. The guy was a good pool player, but he was a better hustler. I won a few games and almost won a lot more; I didn't realize until much later that he was way out of my league. That thought came to me when I had to mow that yard again, knowing that the money was already gone.