Where has the time gone?

so you remember the 5 cent candy bar & the 10 cent soda!!! i can remember the 4 cent candy bar when they were old!!!

we also endured the soap treatment by having to stand in a corner for a half hour & chew on soap!

I miss sleep overs, renting video games from blockbuster, creating entire all day stories with action figures, surge soda, ravens revenge powder candy, bubble gum cigarettes, chasing the ice cream man down the street, hide and go seek, neighborhood laser tag, airsoft wars, being great at sports, being able to ride a bicycle for 40 miles, going on vacations with friends families, going to the roller rink, drawing every day, building things with legos, collecting ninja turtles and power rangers, being really into dinosaurs, collecting Pokémon cards, actually enjoying video games, having my sisters Barbie’s be my action figures girlfriends, going to the movie theater with friends and family, going to arcades, playing mini golf, feeling like my dad was my father.

The only cartoons I miss are probably looney toons, Tom & Jerry, ren & stimpy, beavis and butthead, and this is not a cartoon but celebrity death match.

What were the corresponding wages at those times?

I had a grandpa whose family didn't get electricity in their house or an automobile until he was in high school. He was talking about gas being 5 cents a gallon.

I asked him what the wages were like then, and he said a "good wage" (picking apples, as he was a farmer,) was $2 a day.

I'm not sure -- and I should have asked -- but I believe the hours worked were from sunrise to sunset, as that's what farmers work, and then some.

When the "good old days" are mentioned, people always talk about the prices then, which is neat to hear about -- but I'm more interested in what went along with those prices.

What were people being paid, how long did they have to work, and what were their working conditions like?

in about 1967, in New York, minimum wage was around $1.35 per hour. so a factory worker on a 40 hour week earned $54 a week, gross income. basically, back then a single person could have supported him or herself living in an apartment. you wouldn't have been rich but you could support yourself. i remember rents in that time about $25 to $35 a month. everything was much more balanced out concerning cost of living. even in the 40's in america, it was a rare thing that someone didn't have electricity. i'll tell you a story my grandfather told us; when he was young, in the 19 teens to early 1920's, he would take his girlfriend out on a Sunday, with a dollar. he would get 10 gallons of gas for 90 cents, that's 9 cents per gallon, drive around the countryside, have a dime left over & buy 2 huge ice cream cones for 5 cents apiece! working sunrise to sunset was very common, especially if you were a farmer. once, i remember, a grocery store was closing in about 1969, an old "mom & pop" store, usually on a corner, & they had a "half off" sale. my dad purchased 5 full bags of groceries for $8.23!

Minimum wage was $1,00 per hour but was making $3.28 per hour.
The point I was making was customer service has disappeared with higher prices.

Yes, I understand.

I worked in stores for many years and ours was one of the very few left that still bagged and carried people's groceries out to their vehicles for them -- it was offered to everyone and tipping was not allowed.

It was all part of the service.