Tag Archives: Civil War

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 travel

Monuments, Mormons and Mulligans

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by Bob Sparrow  

Monument Valley at sunset

Southern Utah is the United States’ only area that offers five National Parks – Zion, Bryce, Arches, Canyonlands and Capitol Reef, and thus has the highest concentration of natural scenic wonders found anywhere on Earth!  Which, of course, made it much more difficult for me to find my golf ball when, for whatever reason, it ended up outside the boundaries of the golf course I was playing.  Along with Lake Powell and the Colorado River as water hazards, I’m glad I brought plenty of balls on this trip. This area also boasts four State Parks, two National Monuments, plus Monument Valley, famous for its iconic mesas and buttes often featured in Western movies . . . as well as providing scenic hiding places for my golf balls.

“Found it!!”

Yes, my travels last week took me first to the city of St. George, in southern Utah, to play golf at The Ledges, Coral Canyon, and Copper Rock, but let’s not talk about my golf game when southern Utah has so much more to offer than my ‘Aww shits’ and “Can you hand me another ball?”.  This home of the Mormons, who make up about 70% of the cities’ population, is a most unique and beautiful place.  The first Latter-day Saints (LDS/Mormon) temple, built west of the Mississippi, was not built in Salt Lake City, but in St. George in 1877. 

The city of St. George was founded in 1861, notwithstanding the fact that for some thousands of years before that, the area was inhabited by the Ute, Goshutes, Paiutes, Shoshone, and Navajo Indians.  But the city was founded as part of the Mormon ‘Cotton Mission’ under Brigham Young, which aimed to establish in Utah, a cotton-growing region in the face of the Civil War, as northerners believed that they would no longer be getting cotton from the South.  Even though cotton growing proved to be an unsuccessful venture, this area became known as Dixie.  It remained being called that until 2021, when the ‘woke folk’ decided that the name was racist. 

“Got it!!”

There is controversy about how St. George got its name, but I’m going with the story that it was named after George Smith, first cousin to Joseph Smith, founder of the LDS movement.  George settled in the area and encouraged residents to eat raw, unpeeled potatoes in order to cure scurvy – it sort of worked, as potatoes do contain some Vitamin C, but the cure probably came from the oranges they ate after they ate the potatoes to get that raw potato taste out of their mouths.   Either way, it earned George the name, ‘Potato Saint, thus Saint George.  George may not have been a real saint, but he was a real Mormon who had seven wives and 20 children.  Of course, polygamy is not legal today, but it is said that you don’t have to be Mormon to have one too many wives.

“I found your ball”

My golf game gave me plenty of opportunities to explore the flora and fauna of the surrounding area, and it is, indeed, beautiful; not my golf game, but all the places I looked for my golf ball.

The rest of this week will be spent losing golf balls in an area where I’m more familiar with losing things . . . Las Vegas.

“Fore!!!!!”         

Posted in Historical

Two Sides of Washington D.C.

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by Bob Sparrow

Co-Editor’s note: Yes, I’m still part of the Sparrow-Watson writing team and no, Suzanne did not restrict me from getting near the blog for the last three weeks, it’s just that . . . OK, maybe I was told to stay home and get rid of this virus. As usual I only half-listened, I got rid of the virus, but I didn’t stay home.)

Most of our readers have been to Washington D.C., so telling you about my trip and how cool the Air & Space or Spy Museums were or how I could spend all day in the Natural History Museum is a waste of time, so I’ll tell you about my top four emotional experiences in our nation’s capital and environs.

     1. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Top line, Panel 13 E

To those around my age, the Vietnam War happened when we were in college and the years shortly thereafter, which was a time of great social conflict in our country. So seeing all the names on ‘The Wall’ was a sad reminder of that horrible time in my young adulthood. Suzanne does a great job of honoring fallen soldiers from our hometown of Novato each Memorial Day. Among those honored is Allen Joseph Nelson Jr., who was one of the only people I knew personally who was killed in action in Vietnam. Allen and I played high school football together as well as a year a Marin J.C. I knew his sister, Joanne, who was in my class at Novato, and is no longer with us, but I believe the younger brother, Steve, who was in Suzanne’s class, is.  I would ask that anyone who knows him please pass along to him that I located Allen’s name on the wall (Top line of panel 13E) and said thank you and a silent prayer.

 2. The Holocaust Museum

Confiscated shoes in the Holocaust Museum

First opened in 1993, this museum is relatively new to ‘The Mall’. The tour through it is detailed and emotional. Upon entering you receive a passport-like document of one of the victims of the Holocaust, which traces their country of origin and their life prior to being incarcerated as well as what ‘death camp’ they were in, and the date they died or were freed – it really personalizes the tragedy of it all. The museum is filled with photos, artifacts and videos of events leading up to and through the loss of the war by Germany and the subsequent release of the surviving prisoners from the concentration camps. The exhibit that shows hundreds of victims’ confiscated shoes is particularly gut-wrenching.  While most people are generally familiar with the story of the Holocaust, the museum does an excellent job of bringing home the sheer brutality of this heinous crime against humanity. It still seems incredible that it even took place and how many people it affected and particularly how an entire country could let this happen within their borders.

   3. Gettysburg

Overlooking part of the battlefield at Gettysburg

At the suggestion of a friend, who said that if you’re going to D.C. you need to get up to Gettysburg, we rented a car and made the hour and a half drive to this famous Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania.  The information center there is filled with all kinds of memorabilia and ways to learn about one of the bloodiest and arguably the most pivotal battle of the war.  We chose the in-car CD version which allowed us to stop for as long as we wanted at any particular site.  The battle field, which was much larger than I thought (over 9 square miles) is dotted with over 1,300 memorials, markers and monuments.  Being there and listening to the narration, some stories about brother fighting against brother, gives you a real sense of how and where things were taking place.  In the 3-day battle on July 1-3, 1863, the total of casualties for both armies was approximately 50,000. I was astounded to learn that while we have had approximately 1,264,000 casualties in all of our wars up until now, nearly half, 620,000 were casualties of the Civil War.

     4. Arlington National Cemetery

Changing of the Guard

Just across the Potomac River from The Jefferson Memorial, on property once owned by Robert E. Lee, our national cemetery is a tearfully beautiful place. While the tour through the cemetery talks about all the famous people who are interned there, you cannot help but be struck by the total number of simple gravestones all in a line, “like soldiers at attention”, that are there representing fallen soldiers from every one of our nation’s wars – there are over 400,000 in all buried there. We witnessed a changing of the guard at the ‘Tomb of the Unknown Soldier’, a classy and somber ritual that occurs every half hour this time of year. The grounds offer  hundreds of amazing stories that go with the brave service men and women who make this their final resting place.

While we really didn’t appreciate the rain that fell everyday we were in Washington D.C. and Gettysburg, it seemed to particularly lend itself to the atmosphere of these four historic landmarks that reminded us that our freedom is not free.

Thursday: A few photos to finish our visit to the capital