Monthly Archives: June 2025

Posted in Historical

The Cost of Living, Then and Now

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by Bob Sparrow

With all this talk about tarrifs, recessions, continued high prices, I thought I’d share some information from an article I recently read about the cost of several things being less today than years ago. That was hard to believe, but we’ll examine that later.  Generally, prices continue to rise as does income, but mostly not at the same pace. So, I did a little research of my own. I decide to look back to the year 1975. I picked that year mostly because it was easy math to go back 50 years.  

In 1975 I was five years into my ten-year teaching career, at Tustin High School. I can’t remember what my salary was in 1975, but I do remember that when I left teaching in 1980 my salary was $19,000, yes, a year!  Sounds ridiculously low, but I checked and the average salary in 1980 in all of Orange County was only $21,000.

Average Orange County home in 1975

In 1975, the average income in Orange County was $7,396; while today the average is $136,000 – that’s a growth of 18 times.  But, the average price of an Orange County home in 1975 was $41,600, today it is $1.2 million – that’s a growth of 29 times! In 1975 the average home buyer was 29 years old, today it’s 38 years old. If you were going to rent a nice four-bedroom house instead of buy, in 1975 the rent would have been around $400 a month, today, closer to $5,000.

The average price of a new car in 1975 was $4,800 – just take that times 10 to get today average price.  OK, I’ll do the math for you – $48,000. The price of everyday goods and services, as measured by the CPI, saw a 586% increase from 1973 to 2023. In other words, ‘Purchasing Power’ decreased; meaning that $13 in 1975 had the same buying power as approximately $83 in 2025.

OK, OK, enough with the numbers, where’s the information about how much cheaper things are today?  Here you go . . .

Clothing: In 1975 the average American family spent about 10% to 12% of their household income on clothing. Today, that figure has dropped to around 3%. It’s not because people are buying less, it because more and more clothes come from out of the county, and thus cheaper. Same logic goes for toys that are now cheaper because most are made overseas.

Televisions: A ‘big’ screen TV in 1975 cost around $3,500.  Today, a big screen TV with high-definition cost less than $500

Air fares: I only found the rate in 1941 for a fare from L.A. to Boston – $5,000!  So, in ’75 maybe it was down to $2,500.  Today you can find it for $300-$400

And, finally what you’ve all been waiting for, the price of . . .

Bananas: For those living during the Civil War, bananas were $3 a pound!  In 1975 they dropped to .20 and today they are .55 a pound, so while bananas are cheaper than they were during the Civil War, they are more expensive today.  But I kept them on the list for those Civil War vets.

So, if you’re looking to save money, go buy clothes to wear as you’re either flying from L.A. to Boston, or watching that new high-definition TV. Eating bananas while doing either is optional.

Posted in opinion

PILLOW FIGHTS!

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Remember when you were a kid and a slumber party was a good excuse for a pillow fight? Nothing was as satisfying as landing a blow right to a friend’s noggin, or better yet, the pillow exploding on impact, spewing feathers all over the room. We were unfazed by the knowledge that we would get into trouble and have to clean up the mess. I hadn’t really thought about pillow fights since those long-ago sleep overs, but last week I was scrolling the TV guide looking for something (anything!) worthwhile to watch and saw that ESPN was airing the Pillow Fighting Championship. Wow! Who knew that there was a sport devoted to child’s play, much less that it had ascended to a championship level?

Of course, I had to learn more. As it turns out, like many good (and bad) ideas, the concept of a professional pillow fighting sport stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic. Two brothers, Paul and Steve Williams came up with the idea during lockdown. One can only imagine two grown men, with little else to do, reverting to their childhood entertainment – bludgeoning each other with pillows. Paul came up with the concept of making pillow fighting into a real sport. Steve was not so sure, but he had a feeling the public was ready for something new. At the time, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) was having a moment, but the brothers also observed that the market for it was over-saturated, and its sponsorships were beginning to dry up. The brothers concluded that Pillow Fighting Championships would be a good way to capitalize on the popularity of MMA fighting, but without the violence. As Steve said, “The only difference between the PFC and MMA is that no one gets hurt and queasy audience members don’t have to see blood.”

The first event staged by the PFC took place in August 2021. On January 29, 2022, the inaugural Pillow Fight Championship took place in Florida, featuring 16 men and 8 women competitors. Participants engaged in fights using specialized pillows made of foam rather than down. So I guess there weren’t any feathers flying all over the place. The pillows weigh two pounds and have a nylon casing with handles, to allow for fast and hard-hitting movements. Two pounds doesn’t sound like much (after all, last week I dismissed my two-pound weight gain as being insignificant), but I think two pounds coming at you with force could hurt a bit. Or a lot. Fans are given the pillows at the end of each event in an attempt to grow the popularity of the sport. Nothing converts skeptics to fandom like a sweaty pillow.

I was interested enough to look up the rules of the sport, and there are a lot of them. Two of the rules convinced me I am not cut out to be a professional pillow fighter. First, no competitor can stand still for more than three seconds. Wow – it would take me longer than that just to catch my breath. The other rule that would eliminate me from the get-go: no spitting, cursing, or foul language. I could abide by the spitting aspect, but if my language on the golf course is any indication, I think I’d be ruled out of pillow fighting the first time I got pummeled by a pillow. So, another career path off my list. Besides, in the event that took place last Saturday in Reno, all participants had to sign an injury waiver, and the prize money was only $1000. Heck, that would barely pay my deductible at the hospital. Think I’ll stick to my knitting for now.

Posted in Uncategorized

We Hope It’s Not Shittification

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by Bob Sparrow

It’s always tough to follow Suzanne’s heartfelt blog on Memorial Day but follow it I must.  I thought I’d talk about old words and thus would elicit some help from Shakespeare, who seemed to be pretty good with words, new and old, given that when he couldn’t think of a word to describe something, he made one up. Yes, it’s true. Here are a few of his made up the words: frugal, gloomy, hurry, accommodations, countless and countless others.  What led me to writing about old words was an article I recently read by Jennifer Freeman, Senior Editor at Word Smarts.   She listed several words that the ‘baby boomers’ invented and that those people around my age grew up with, and are no longer heard today.  Here’s a few of hers, along with some other ‘ancient’ words, with their definition and their use in a sentence, in case you were born after the 60s:

Groovy: Fashionable and exciting; enjoyable and excellent.  “That is a groovy tie-dye shirt.”

Foxy: Attractive or sexy; cunning or sly.  “You’re looking very foxy tonight”

Hey, that’s copacetic dude!

Bippy: Used euphemistically for an unspecified part of the body; generally understood as equivalent to ‘butt.’  “You bet your sweet bippy”
Copacetic: In excellent order.  “I’m good, everything is copacetic”

Boogie: To move or leave somewhere fast.  “He’s coming after us, we gotta boogie”

Cool Beans: To express approval or delight. “I’m cool beans with those hot beans.”

The Skinny: Confidential information on a particular person or topic.  “What’s the skinny with that outfit?”

Doofus: A stupid person. “Don’t be such a doofus!”  You could also be called a dipshit or a tool.

Floppy disk

Floppy disk: a thin plastic disk coated with magnetic material on which data for a computer could be stored.  “She was disappointed with my floppy disc.” OK, maybe I stretched the definition a little there.

Galivant:  To travel, roam or move about for pleasure.  “She’s been galivanting all over town.”

Britches: pants.  “I’m pulling up my britches and going home!”

Hootnanny: A gathering in which folk signers entertain, often with the audience joining in.  “Are you ready to sing at the hootnanny?” Don’t ask what folk singers are; they’re pictured next to the T-Rex in most photos!

Grody:  Disgusting and revolting.  “He looked really grody!”

Ice box: Refrigerator “You can keep your beer cold by putting it next to her heart or in the ice box”

The Millennials and Gen Z ers would probably responds with, ‘Oh Yeah, well, here’s some words we invented’: Blog, Bitcoin, Clickbait, Enshittification . . .

What?! Enshittification?!! 

I was both stumped and fascinated by this word, so I looked it up: The process by which online platforms gradually degrade over time, become less valuable and more annoying.  I had the sinking feeling that I was reading about our blog.

Here’s another one: ‘Frenemies’.  Older folk don’t use this one, we either liked someone or we didn’t, there was no wishy-washy middle ground.

How about ‘Selfie’? It was unheard of to take a photo of yourself, either you were in the photo or you were the guy with the Brownie camera.  Later there were timers on certain cameras, where we could set it on something then run around and get in the photo before it snapped.  Those were usually a disaster.   

Photobomb – this has a mixed definition of both having someone accidently be in the background of a photo, or purposely spoiling the photo by popping into the background.  The latter definition seems more prevalent these days.  

Sorry for this ‘word salad’, hopefully I’ll be traveling again soon!