I’ve been a player in the big game, just like you, paying increasing prices since about 1975 for about everything.
Since I’m semi-literate and blessed with a good memory most days, we will be looking at real numbers.
Hang on, it’s a rough ride.
And lots of it is local.
Land prices going up
Bought my first land for
speculation, had been logged completely but had good deeded access prior to 1970. Borrowed $1,000 from local bank and got 40 acres, costing $25 per acre.
Realized I could write a pretty good ad a few years later, when my classified listing in a mountain paper at Lenoir sold it for me for $4,100 cash. Thought I was the slickest land pirate ever came down the pike.
Moved my growing family to Murphy in the fall of 1969. Not long until there was a big auction at Peachtree of the old Messer farm. Didn’t go but folks that did came back amazed.
“Some of that land brought $200 an acre,” they said, shaking their heads.
As editor of the Cherokee Scout, I was covering county commissioners meetings, writing them up and printing my stories each month. They were not used to that but it put me right in the middle of every discussion.
In the mid-1970s, in the rambling look at tax evaluations for Cherokee County folks they asked the question of each other.
“Can we say … across the board … that every single rough steep rocky acre in the whole county is worth at least $100 per acre?”
They finally decided that some remote, isolated land was not worth $100 per acre and let the matter rest.
Housing costs
In 1969, Murphy was like most small towns in the South. We had only one licensed real estate agent in the whole area and he had to also sell some insurance to make a living.
We had made a detour to Statesville on our way home from Alaska in 1966 and bought a new standard brick ranch-style house for $15,000. You know the type – three bedrooms, bath and a half, single-car carport on the end because most families owned just one vehicle.
Statesville, on Interstate 40 east of Asheville, had two brick plants within its city limits and builders were cranking them out. Murphy was at a disadvantage because the nearest brick place was at Hendersonville, and brick came with a big freight bill attached.
However, building costs have continually soared.
Today, those old brick ranchers that sold new for $15,000 now go for better than $200,000 each. Which means the $60,000 you pay today for a new pickup truck would have bought four new brick rancher family homes in the 1970s.
Buying vehicles
Back in the day major manufacturers Ford, Chevy and Plymouth advertised themselves as “the low-priced three.” But no more.
Not only buying a vehicle is pricey, just repairing one has gotten so expensive that we routinely see on TV advertising from insurance outfits that cover repairs and replacement costs.
I was driving my wife and baby daughter home from Alaska about 1967 in a late-model GMA pickup, straight drive and positraction on the ice-covered Alaskan highway down through Canada.
I had to hold it firmly in high gear to keep us going, nighttime temps dropped to 35 degrees below zero, but the transmission kept jumping out of gear.
At Edmonton, we gladly met with a mechanic who had worked at a General Motors dealership down in the old U.S.A. He wanted $110 and four hours to put a new rebuilt trans in my truck. And I gladly paid.
New car or truck prices are simply obscene to an old guy like me.
So I followed the example of my children and bought a used Honda Pilot couple years back. Fine car and it plays my country music CDs without missing a beat.
Guns and knives
Skyrocketing numbers now infect the prices of guns and knives, of which you can never have too many. Apparently good investments.
Got a Winchester Model 77 semi-automatic .22 repeater for Christmas when I was 16 years old. It sold for $38 brand new at a hardware in Lexington, which these days calls itself the BBQ capital of the world and hosts a big annual festival.
Saw a used one, good shape, on flea market table here recently. Asking price $500. Traded mine for a 10-speed bike at Western Auto. Hindsight says I should have kept it.
Last week deep inside Walmart sporting goods, found a cool stainless steel straight-blade hunting knife, with clever plastic sheath for $6.97. Have gotten too old and fat to hunt but loved the quality and price, bought four. Made in Vietnam.
Since it’s a weapon, a Walmart supervisor must approve the sale. So a nice man came out and looked me over.
“I’m 84 years old,” I told him. “How old do you have to be to buy a little knife …”
He just smiled and waved me through …
Wally Avett first wrote for the Cherokee Scout as editor in 1969. His books are available as signed copies at the Scout office in Murphy. Call him at 828-837-5531 or email wallyavett@gmail.com.