The Life of Brian

1981

Nineteen eighty-one.  The worst year of my life!  Ha Ha, only kidding.  Heck, I'd be lying if I said that 1981 was any different than 1980.  I was six years old, I'm positive that my memories of this time could very easily meld into the year prior.  Or even the year after.  So, this post will be short.  Nothing dramatic stands out in my mind for this year.  I would have been in first grade which took place at the Topa Topa campus.  We still lived on Oak Street.  My Dad was still tossing dog poop over the chain link fence of the barranca.  Our trash cans were still made of metal.  Yeah, nothing much to talk about, other then of course one of my favorite topics, costs.

Shall I begin with the price of vehicles?  I shall.  A Datsun Stanza cost $6680.00.  Who remembers the Dodge Colt?  That vehicle cost less than the Stanza at $6100.00.  The Volkswagen Rabbit, which was a diesel, was on the expensive side at $7495.00. 

Clothing was still fairly inexpensive.  Boy's jeans were $7.50.  A man's four-piece suit cost under $200.00.  A "Judy Bond" women's shirt cost $28.00.

Bacon was $1.29 a pound.  Beef sirloin, $1.86 a pound.  A 16 ounce can of Hershey syrup was a piddly .69 cents.  Eggs .95 cents a dozen.  You could buy four pounds of onions for one buck!  Did you own a Barcalounger, velvet recliner?  Well, you were fairly wealthy then as they cost a whopping $325.00.

Expensive homes cost a little over $84,000.00.  House rentals ran about $350 a month for a three-bedroom home.  The Rubik's cube was a very affordable four dollars.  

Any fans of alcohol?  A 750ml bottle of Johnny Walker red label was $7.59.  Boy how that price has changed!  Light beer, $5.50.  No, not for a six pack, that's the price for a case of 24 cans!

Minimum wage was $3.35 an hour.  The median family salary was $ 22,390.00.  I found this to be interesting... In 1981 the median salary was an increase of 6.5 percent from the previous year.  That was before adjusting for the change in consumer prices.  After adjusting for a 10.4 percent increase in consumer prices between 1980 and 81.  The median family salary actually decreased by 3.5 percent.  Think about those numbers.  At $22,000 a year, you were bringing home $1833.00 a month.  $458.00 a week.  This is why you were probably doing fairly well if your family was able to buy a Barcalounger!

"In almost all other professions a man must be able to observe carefully and report accurately what he has seen.  Those qualifications are unnecessary for journalists, however, since their job is to write sensational stories that sell newspapers."

-Robert Anton Wilson, Masks of the illuminati