According to the Arizona Daily Star
I doubt if any Arizonans will look back at this summer’s gas mess fondly, but — strangely enough — I have some good memories of the oil crises of ’73 & ’75.
For a couple of days during the ’75 fuel shortage, my friend David and I bought several dozen donuts early in the morning at Dunkin’ Donuts and sold them to the folks waiting on line for gas at the Hess station. Someone else had rigged up a supermarket shopping cart with a big coffee urn and a cooler with OJ and milk. We followed him up and down the line selling our donuts for 50¢ apiece and earning enough in the process for me to buy paneling for my van, which was immobile, waiting for me to be old enough to get my license.
My Dad said, “If gas ever gets up to $1.00 a gallon, I’m gonna quit driving!” It did — for a short time — but he didn’t. Gas is a lot more expensive right now than we ever dreamed back then, (I don’t think any Europeans will be shedding any tears for us) but I don’t think it’s more expensive in actual terms.
In the summer of ’75 I got a job at my uncle’s drug store — a real legitimate job, with a paycheck and everything — and he paid me the minimum wage, which was $1.85 an hour at the time. (Back then, there was a separate student wage which was 30¢ less than the adult wage. I’m not positive when they ended that provision.) Gas back then got up to around 57¢ per gallon, which equals about 31% of the minimum wage. This week, the average gasoline price nationwide is $1.63 per gallon for regular grade, while the minimum wage is $5.15 — or 32% of the minimum wage.
Of course back then, I was driving a 1973 Chevy Impala whose gasoline consumption was rated in gallons per mile; today, my Hyundai Accent gets me about 35 mpg.
