When you grow old you find many of the things you hold dear

[Crepitus]

I'm an 80 baby

Born in 1967

[resister]

Born in 1967

Good a year as any other to be born, I reckon.

[Common]

I am happy.

Me too, your just not old yet

[Common]

Every Wednesday, I stop by my friend Alan's comic shop. He and his wife Marsha are such good people. Alan was born in Illinois a few months before I was born in Indiana, so we grew up in very similar environments. We invariably end up reminiscing about some facet of popular entertainment - his business, after all - and waxing nostalgic about the comics we read, the t.v. shows we loved, the movies we saw down at the neighborhood theatre. (Tickets were a quarter, candy a dime.)

Alan remembers when comics were 10 cents; my mother was pretty protective about what I read for a long time, so they were 12 cents by the time I got into them. Comics now are $3.99 and up, and most are pretty dark and convoluted compared with the stuff we were getting in the '60s. When I was a kid, each issue was a one-shot - the entire story was wrapped up in 18 pages, or whatever it was; today, it's all extended story arcs, massive crossover events (designed to make you buy a dozen or more titles in order to get "the whole story") and nothing ever really ends. (At least not until the next universal re-boot, which both of the major comic companies, Marvel and D.C., do every few years now; they pretty much wipe the slate clean and start every title over with "#1", re-invent many of the characters, and leave you guessing about what remains in the new continuity and what no longer ever existed.)

Bizzaro Superman yep comics were dirt cheap and I wish I still had them today, id make a ton of cash.

Saturday matinees were a quarter for two full movies and I used to buy malt balls for a dime.

[Common]

I remember when I could buy a hamburger, french fires and a malt for 75 cents. Comics a dime, coke 5 cents, Gasoline 21 cents a gallon, my first home cost $9,000 and my monthly utility bill was less than $20. Dem was da days....

My first house cost me 14,000 I thought I remembered 17cts gas maybe im wrong about that.

What I do remember is McDonalds all having Golden Archs with the number of hamburgers sold and it was far less than a Million and we all thought the McDonalds sucked and wouldnt go there. I still thing McDonalds sucks

[Common]

When I started smoking they were less than. $.50

I remember having to go to the machine for my father to buy him cigarettes. Id put in a quarter and get two cents taped to the side of the pack and trust me thats the truth, they were 23cts a pack in a machine and they had no means then to give you change so they just taped the pennies on the side of each pack.

In a store they were cheaper

[Standing Wolf]

I took my copies of the first issues of 'Avengers' and 'X-Men', from 1963, to the shop a while back to show Alan, and one of his people asked me how much I paid for them. I happily said, "Twelve cents". Alan has a copy of 'X-Men #1' in the store on consignment that is not in quite as good condition as mine, and he's asking something like $1600 for it.

When I was an older teenager, ca. 1970-72, I can remember going to the store to buy my mother a carton of Salems for $3.10.

[Common]

I took my copies of the first issues of 'Avengers' and 'X-Men', from 1963, to the shop a while back to show Alan, and one of his people asked me how much I paid for them. I happily said, "Twelve cents". Alan has a copy of 'X-Men #1' in the store on consignment that is not in quite as good condition as mine, and he's asking something like $1600 for it.

When I was an older teenager, ca. 1970-72, I can remember going to the store to buy my mother a carton of Salems for $3.10.

I dont remember xmen comics when I was a kid, I thought they were more modern.
When I was sent for cigarettes I bought them out of the machine, the store didnt want to sell to a 8-9 yr old kid back then either. In the store I believe they were 17 or 19 cts a back for camels

[The Xl]

You just have to continually roll with the punches. It is what it is.

[Standing Wolf]

This will blow some minds. When I was really young, flying around with my family on those tail-dragging DC-3s - you got on through a hatch in the rear and walked uphill to your seat - the stews would come around during the flight with baskets filled with these little packages of cigarettes, all the popular brands, 2 or 3 cigarettes per package, like they were passing out salted peanuts. The stews knew my family because my father was a pilot for the airline, so they would give my sister and I cigarettes to pass on to our folks. A stewardess - pardon me, flight attendant - giving cigarettes to a five-year-old. Wrap your mind around that!