Category: Cars

Boomers Got Their Air and Water for Free

It has become increasingly apparent to Mister Boomer that the times, they aren’t a-changin’; they have already changed. There are so many areas of our lives we knew as Baby Boomers that are operating in a fundamentally different way now than back then, that boomers can’t help but feel the encroachment of age. One such area that is wearing on Mister B’s mind lately is how we pay for air and water.

The mere notion of paying for air or water was as alien to boomers as the sci-fi visitors they watched on the silver screen. Some parts of the country only got TV by way of a cable in the 1960s, which meant those households would to have to pay for TV. Yet, most boomers would have said, “Pay for TV, what are you, crazy?” TV came from your antenna, delivered to your living room as if by magic. It seemed a national right. The very same thing can be said of water and air.

Boomers took for granted that when they turned on the faucet in their homes, fresh water would pour out. While not free, water in most municipalities was very inexpensive. Water was automatically given to every person seated in a restaurant. It was just the way it was. Except for some dry spells when water may have been rationed, boomers and their parents could drink from the backyard hose, wash cars and water lawns to their hearts’ content. It seemed like water was a never-ending resource that would forever remain available at affordable prices.

Furthermore, drinking water came from a tap. From Mister Boomer’s perspective, it was a higher class that had access to bottled water. Some sources say bottled water from Europe was sold in the U.S. as far back as the late 1700s. Other documentation points to an increase in the popularity of bottled water thought to have medicinal properties, taken from springs in New York, Boston and Maine, and sold in the early 1800s. Most boomers, like Mister B, would thumb their noses at such conceits. To most of us, water was local, and not bought in a bottle.

The modern era of buying water in a bottle caught hold in the 1970s, when flexible plastic containers were perfected, and Perrier introduced its brand to the world. At the same time, alarms were being sounded over water quality around the country, and that convinced some people that a potable water source that did not come from the tap might be worth a look. There has been a steady, if not recently precipitous, climb in sales, brands and availability ever since.

When Mister Boomer mentions free air, he is referring to the kind needed to fill the tires of bicycles and cars. Air-filled tires were first sold in Europe in the 1890s, and to a smaller degree, in the U.S. Meanwhile, John Dunlap invented the pneumatic bicycle tire in 1888, about the same time that pneumatic automobile tires were being tested. By 1900, Firestone Tire & Rubber Company, the country’s largest tire manufacturer at the time, moved from making bicycle tires to automobile tires. Through his close relationship with Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone inked a deal to be the exclusive supplier of tires to the Ford Motor Company. In 1905, Firestone convinced Ford that his pneumatic tires offered a better ride and more durability than the solid-based rubber for Ford’s car buyers, and Ford purchased nearly 30,000 of them that year. The pneumatic tire has reigned supreme for cars ever since.

From an early age, Mister B recalls riding his bike to the Sinclair gas station, where, like all other gas stations, there was an air pump off to the side of the main building. There was plenty of room for a car to pull up next to the pump, which had a hook that held rings of extended hose so the car owner could reach all four tires around the car without having to move it. The pump was attached to an air compressor, usually housed within the service bays of the station. Some air pumps had the compressor built into its structure.

On a bicycle, it was a piece of cake to use the air pump. Brother Boomer first demonstrated to Mister B how to take the hose nozzle and press it over the bike tire valve to inflate the tire. It was especially handy to have this free access when your bike tire had a slow leak; easier to refill the tire than take out the inner tube, find the leak and fix it, only to have the need to refill the tire with air again. In later years, Brother Boomer bought a hand bicycle pump that could be employed in the Boomer household’s backyard.

In Mister Boomer’s neighborhood, every kid got their first car between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Cars could be had very cheaply, but of course, at those price points, tires may not have been in the best shape, requiring multiple trips to the gas station air pump. It was at the time Mister B got his first car that he purchase a tire pressure gauge of his very own, to determine the stage at which the tires were properly inflated.

Somewhere between the late ’70s and early ’80s, stations began charging for air. At first it was 25 cents, but within a few years, it had jumped to 50 cents. Now, when you can find an air pump, you’ll be spending a dollar or more.

Of course, the air was never free; the station had to have a compressor and pay for the operation, but it was a courtesy for customers. Back then, your windshield was wiped and oil checked for free, too.

Did you ever imagine you’d buy water in a bottle on a regular basis, boomers? Do you remember filling your bike tires or car tires at the gas station for free?

Please note: This is an edited version of a post first published by Mister Boomer on August 25, 2019.

Boomers Helped Shape the Boom of the 1950s

The decade of 1950 to 1960 is a fascinating subject in American pop culture and history. Approximately 4 million babies were born each year in that prime baby-boom ten year period. By 1964, baby boomers comprised nearly a third of the U.S. population. It has always held the interest of Mister Boomer, in no small part because he was born in that decade. Yet from a personal nature, Mister B has vivid memories of the latter half of the 1950s as he entered grade school, particularly for three reasons: cars, colors and television. In retrospect, these three elements did help to shape the burgeoning culture of the 1950s, while also masking the deep social and political issues that would bubble and boil over in the 1960s.

Cars
Growing up in newly sprouted suburbs in the Midwest, American car culture was the order of the day as far back as Mister B can remember. Just as today’s kids cannot fathom a time before cell phones, most baby boomers never knew a time without the automobile. The grandparents of baby boomers knew a time when horses and carriages crowded dirt or cobblestone streets, but while the family of some baby boomers did not own a car, the number dwindled each year in the 1950s. By 1960, only about 20 percent of American households did not own at least one vehicle. Mister Boomer’s paternal grandfather never owned a car, and relied on a ride to work from co-workers.

Some of Mister Boomer’s earliest memories revolve around Sunday drives in the family’s used 1950 Ford. Looking back, the car’s bulbous shape and bullet-nosed front is almost cartoonish, yet the interior was spacious for a family of five. By 1956, Mister B’s father had acquired a new, two-toned Chevy, complete with tailfins, that characterized the evolution of car style in that era. Mister Boomer’s uncles all owned iconic cars of the time, mostly Chevys and Oldsmobiles. Mister B cannot forget the yellow 1957 Chevy driven by one of his uncles.

Suburban living increased the need for family cars, and by the end of the decade, two-car families were growing exponentially. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 also cemented the automobile as the major source of transportation for baby boomer families. It took ten years to build the Interstate Highway System. Mister Boomer has many memories of playing in the areas dug up for the interstate freeways that were being built through his neighborhood.

Colors
The popularity of color camera film is another invention that, though manufactured before the War, didn’t take a firm foothold among consumers until the 1950s. Family photos were taken in black & white in the Mister B household; it was the early 1960s before his family got on the color photograph bandwagon. Nonetheless, looking at them now, the vivid colors of that time flood back into view. Mister Boomer especially recalls the colors of the cars, as well as the bright blues, greens, pinks, grays and yellows of furniture, wall colors and tiles in his own home and that of his relatives. Memories of springtime during the 1950s bring back visions of his mother’s Easter outfits, resplendent in the pastels of the era in a time when men and women dressed in “their Sunday best” to go to church.

Recently, out of curiosity, Mister B has taken to the internet to look for the plaster wall hangings, curtains, wallpaper and furniture that surrounded him in his formative years. Sure enough, the colors he discovered closely matched those in his memories.

Television
The 1950s were, according to popular lore, the “Golden Age of Television” programming. Sales of TVs grew almost as quickly as car sales, adding approximately four million new sets per year. By 1953, half of American households owned a TV. Innovations like the introduction of the first remote control, the beginning of coast to coast broadcasting, and TV programming that appealed to the three generations of people — who could possibly be living in a household — launched television into the world of home entertainment. This new generation of devices presented music for a new generation, too; Dick Clark appeared as host of American Bandstand in 1956. That same year, Elvis appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Mister Boomer has said many times that his family did not own a color TV until the 1970s. Nonetheless, family pictures show that the family owned a television set from the time before Mister B was born. Mister Boomer has distinct memories of watching The Howdy Doody Show and The Mickey Mouse Club.

Another immensely important television memory of the 1950s for Mister Boomer was watching the Today show. NBC began broadcasting the program in 1952, so it was well established by the time Mister B was school age. The show provided local weather, which was vital for boomer moms to have for dressing their young children’s walk to school, like Mister B and Brother Boomer. It was also the place where families could see if their school would be closed for inclement weather and snowstorms.

Nostalgia for these aspects of the 1950s in no way characterize the full nature of the historical events of that decade. The Cold War was getting frostier by the day, as the U.S. tested its first hydrogen bomb (1952), more powerful than the atomic bombs that ended World War II; the “Communist threat,” which arguably got the U.S. involved in Korea, prompted the House Un-American Activities Committee to hold hearings for seven years; the Korean War battled on until a cautious truce divided the country of Korea into the two halves (1953) we see today; Brown v. Board of Education (1954) launched just the beginning of civil rights discussion, unrest and legislation. The economy was booming, but socio-political problems at home and abroad remained.

Perhaps it was fortunate for Mister Boomer, and many boomers born in that decade, that he was too young to be aware of these momentous issues during the 1950s. What memories of the 1950s do you have, boomers?

Some additional reading on cars and TVs from Mister Boomer:
Boomers Learned a New Definition for “Fob”
Boomers Helped TV Sales to Skyrocket
Boomers See That Everything Old Is New Again