Chattanooga: Gas prices have boomers reminiscing about the 'good old days'

By: Yolanda Putman
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Michelle Orlins isn’t ready just yet to park her paid-off sport utility vehicle permanently. But the 51-year-old Chattanooga resident plans to save lots of money when she buys a scooter to commute to work.

“I’m tired of paying $60 to fill up my gas tank,” she said.

The price of a gallon of regular unleaded gas reached $3.55 Saturday in Chattanooga, according to thee AAA Fuel Gauge Report. Nationwide, the price tipped $3.69. “I never thought gas would get this expensive,” said Mrs. Orlins, who recalled gas costing 30 cents a gallon in 1964.

Baby boomers, those adults born between 1946 and 1964, have seen gas prices skyrocket, especially in the later years of their driving careers. The oldest boomers earned the right to drive in the early 1960s while the youngest members of the generation could get behind the wheel in 1980.

The price of gas — along with price for such staples as eggs and milk — has yo-yo’d through the past 40 years.

Photo Courtesy of the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Bicentennial Library -- Penney's Gulf Service station on Dayton Boulevard around 1956.

According to the World Almanac, in 1964, when gas was 30 cents a gallon, a dozen eggs cost 54 cents and a gallon of milk was 95 cents.

Ten years later, gas was 53 cents a gallon, eggs were $1.54 a dozen and milk was $1.57 a gallon. Flash forward another 10 years and gas had climbed to $1.21 per gallon, eggs dropped to $1.01 per dozen and milk was $2.26 per gallon.

By 1994, gas actually dropped to $1.11 a gallon, a dozen eggs were 87 cents and a gallon of milk was $2.88.

Today, the sting of all-time high gas prices has boomers — and most other motorists — clamoring for relief. Some are trading in big gas guzzlers, while others are carpooling, consolidating trips, using public transportation and rethinking vacation plans.

Julia Scott, 56, of Chattanooga, owns a Ford Explorer and her husband drives a Ford Escort, but she sometimes chooses to ride the CARTA bus to work to save money and gas.

“I do that whenever the weather is nice,” she said. “It also helps with parking.”

Some people have traded their gas-hungry vehicles for economy cars, said Tim Kelly, president of Kelly Auto Group.

However, “more often than that, people are scared to death (of the economy) and they’re not buying anything,” he said.

Deborah Joyner, a 53 year-old Johnson City resident, has an SUV, but she’s changing her ways.

“My smart car is on order and it gets 40 miles a gallon,” she said of the tiny car that arrived in the United State this year with promises of improved gas mileage.

Greg Laskoski, managing director of public relations for AAA Auto Club South, said gas prices are expected to creep up another 10 cents to 15 cents by Memorial Day weekend, then taper off.

“Supply and demand can’t support crude oil prices at this price for too prolonged a time,” he said.

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