Monday, March 23, 2026
When a Cold One Cost a Quarter: Beer Prices Through the Decades
Remember when my dad would send me to Kowalski's corner store with a dollar bill and tell me to bring back a six-pack of Schlitz and keep the change? Those days are long gone, according to a new analysis tracking beer prices from 1950 to today. Back in 1950, that six-pack ran about 75 cents. By 1979 — when Dad was complaining about everything getting expensive under Carter — it had climbed to $2.50. Today's average sits at $12.99, and that's for the basic stuff, not the craft brews with names I can't pronounce.
The numbers tell a familiar story about American inflation, but they also reflect how we've changed as beer drinkers. The corner tavern with Pabst on tap has given way to gastropubs serving IPAs with 47 different hop varieties. Sometimes I wonder if we've complicated something that used to be beautifully simple.
✍ My Take: There's something to be said for the days when beer was beer, not a lifestyle choice requiring a sommelier's vocabulary. Sure, quality has improved, but so has the pretension — and Dad's wallet-stretching worries from '79 look quaint compared to today's sticker shock.
Flying Saucers Still Landing at Ice Cream Counters
Carvel's Flying Saucer ice cream sandwich is celebrating its 75th birthday this year, and somehow this simple pleasure has outlasted drive-in movies, soda fountains, and most of the mom-and-pop ice cream shops where I first discovered them. Two chocolate wafer "saucers" sandwiching vanilla ice cream — it sounds almost quaint now, doesn't it? But kids today still light up when they see them in the freezer case, just like we did when the space age was new and every kid dreamed of rocket ships.
The timing couldn't have been more perfect back in 1951. The country was buzzing about UFO sightings, and Tom Carvel had the marketing genius to turn our fascination with flying saucers into frozen gold. While other treats have come and gone — remember Dippin' Dots claiming to be "the ice cream of the future"? — the Flying Saucer keeps on keeping on.
✍ My Take: In an age of artisanal everything and Instagram-worthy desserts, there's profound comfort in something that hasn't changed its recipe in three-quarters of a century. Sometimes the best innovations are the ones that know when to stop innovating.
📎 Fox News
The Mother Road Made More Than Miles
A heartfelt piece caught my eye today about growing up along Route 66 — not the romanticized version you see in coffee table books, but the real deal with its truck stops, tourist traps, and working families just trying to make ends meet. The writer reminds us that the famous highway wasn't just a scenic drive for Sunday adventurers; it was Main Street America for thousands of small towns from Chicago to Santa Monica.
Those roadside businesses — the motor courts, diners with hand-painted signs, and gas stations where the attendant still checked your oil — they weren't quaint by design. They were practical, family-run operations serving travelers when a cross-country trip was still an adventure requiring paper maps and plenty of prayer. Interstate highways killed most of them, trading character for efficiency, local flavor for predictable chain restaurants.
✍ My Take: We gained speed and convenience when the interstates bypassed Route 66, but we lost something harder to measure — the serendipity of discovery and the warmth of places where the owner knew your name after just one visit. Progress isn't always improvement.
Spring is painting the maple tree outside my window with the faintest hint of green, and somehow that never gets old. Here's to the simple pleasures that endure, and to finding tomorrow's reasons to smile in yesterday's wisdom. — Jack
— Jack Reynolds