By Roger Gitlin – EYE ON DEL NORTE – November 3, 2021
Last week, I was watching an old movie, Die Hard, with a rather young looking Bruce Willis starring. If you remember the movie, there was the scene when a body came flying out of the Nakatomi Bldg and landed atop an LAPD unit. The police car then began moving erratically and in the scene in question, blew past an ARCO station. if you were observant you noticed the price of Regular gas at $.79 a gallon.
That prompted me to think a bit when Die Hard was produced and released:. The movie was filmed in 1987 and released in 1988.
Posted are fuel prices in southern California for the following years
1971… $ .34 cents per gallon
1987… $ .79 cents per gallon
2021… $ 5.05 cents per gallon
Fuel prices have risen 639% in the last 34 years!
Each of you reading this post are quite aware of the minimum wage you earned on your first or second job. Does it relate to a 639% increase?
Inflation is now with us for what I predict will be until the next election cycle.
It is painfully obvious our local government will say or do nothing to offend the State, Gov. Newsom or our Federal partners who are deaf, dump and blind to the pain at the pump you are suffering.
But, the good Dr. (just call him God) Stutz is not ready to release this ridiculous mask mandate through the Holidays.
One can see clearly what Crescent City, Del Norte County and the State of California’s priorities are.
I remember getting gas in Arcata in 1970 when it was .34 a gallon for regular and thinking why it was so much higher than in the Bay Area where it was .27 a gallon. But at least I got a free glass and triple Blue Chip Stamps.
What wonderful nostalgia! I remember gas being about a quarter a gallon while I grew up. When I was in high school, I got a part time job working at an Arco Station. That was in the day when an attendant cleaned the windows, checked the tire pressure, under the hood for oil, brake, ATF, and battery fluid levels, along with belts and hoses. When gas increased to a whopping 54 cents a gallon, many old-timers vowed that they would stop driving before paying such a ridiculous amount! We were the first station in Sacramento to offer the new “Self-Service,” and we had to teach people how to use the pumps. People flocked to those pumps to save a nickel a gallon. Thanks Roger, you gave me some fond memories of a time in history that we will never ever see again.
AOA,
Arco? If it was back when it was a quarter a gallon I bet it was a Richfield, and you filled tanks with Imperial Boron gas. Before self service took off, primarily due to the late 1973 OPEC oil embargo, the only station that I knew had self service was Bigfoot Gas on the corner of Central Avenue and Murray Road in McKinleyville as far back as 1968.
Nope, it was an Arco station in Sacramento. Atlantic Petroleum and Richfield Oil of California merged in 1966. Though I imagine that a few of the stations in California still retained the Richfield name and signage. Except for a vacation when I was seven years old, I never got familiarized with Del Norte and Humboldt until my move in the late 1980s. Interesting that Bigfoot Gas was a pioneer in self-service gas. That transition took away a bunch of jobs for young folks. In those days, an attendant could get to know their way around most engines just by doing their routine checks. Of course, many of us also had old-clunker project vehicles we were working on at home that would eventually be our first cars and trucks. Thanks for the memories J!