[R-390] EAC Contract info in Red Bank Paper

[Ben Loper]

I guess it's all relative, when I got married 30 years ago my wife
weighed 121 pounds.

On 8/21/12, Marshall Dues (K5MMD) <mmdues at gmail.com> wrote:
> I got out of the navy in 1964, and returned to my home in the Flint,
> Michigan area.  Minimum wage then was $.90 or $1.00 per hour.  Flint is a
> General Motors town consisting of Buick, Chevrolet, Chevrolet Frame &
> Stamping, Fisher Body, AC Spark Plug, and Ternstedt Parts Mfg.  All union.
> The United Auto Workers wage for assembly line workers was $2.65 per hour,
> with a shift premium of $.25 per hour.  My navy pay was around $78.00 per
> month, so, although I swore I would Never work in the factories, I was
> employed at Buick as an assembly line worker on the third shift.  I was
> making over a Hundred Dollars a Week! and thought I was finally pooping in
> tall cotton for the first time in my life.
>
> In 1966, several important things in life (to me) were in some sort of
> harmony:  A new Jaguar XKE sports car cost $6,600.00,  a new Cessna 150
> airplane cost $6,700.00 and my Union wages for the year was around
> $6,500.00 gross.  Take home pay was obviously less because of taxes, union
> dues, and other deductions.  I was single, living in an apartment that cost
> me $16.00 per week, and I had recently purchased a new Buick LeSabre 400
> fastback (that I myself assembled and walked down the assembly line on my
> shift) that had a list price of $3,456.20, but I remember paying $2,900 or
> so for it (I still have the window sticker somewhere).
>
> I was taking private pilot flying lessons, and decided to not buy the
> Jaguar XKE or the new Cessna 150, but I did purchase my first airplane, a
> 1946 Aeronca model 7AC "Champ" for $1,200.00.  I flew that plane for over
> 800 hours and even flew it down here to the Houston area in 1969.
>
> I mention these figures to illustrate what the costs associated with life
> in the early '60s were for the wants and needs of a young man with only a
> high school education and military service behind him.  Life was "sort of"
> good at that time, but because of the decline in the quality of life in
> Flint, Michigan, I left for Northwest airlines in Detroit. (Better pay,
> although still union). Good technical schooling (I was an avionics
> technician in the aviation industry for the next 25 years (including ARAMCO
> aviation department in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia). Today, Flint, Michigan (and
> Michigan in general) is an economic cesspool of corruption, greed and
> Chicago style politics.  ALL of those hundred year old automobile factories
> have been scraped of the face of the earth.  It's still a union only state,
> but there are very few jobs to be had.
>
> The Collins R-390 series of radios at $1,000 - $1,300  were out of my reach
> at the time, but are a bargain at most prices today.  As Roger says: you
> need at least TWO of them.  More is better.  It's a great receiver.
>
> Sorry to ramble, but this old man is starting to live in the past, these
> days.
>
> 73,
>
> Marshall M. Dues,  K5MMD, (ex WN8DIM, WA8PEX, WA5ZEP, WB5MYO)
> Collins R-390As, ART-13, URC-32B, S-line, ARINC avionics, plus a hundred or
> more of the Hallicrafters, National, Hammarlund, Gonset, Morrow, Drake,
> Swan, Heath, Knight, and many other classics saved from the land fill by a
> young man who actually Learned about Ohm's Law electronics.
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 4:22 PM, Roger Ruszkowski <
> flowertime01 at wmconnect.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Ross,
>>
>> This looks like a sweet deal to me at 1K each.
>> So in 66 a kilo buck was 1/5 of the take home pay for an automotive
>> worker
>> for a year in Detroit or Flint Michigan.
>>
>> That was serious money.
>>
>> In 68, for 40 hours in a Flint Chevy shop you took home $100.12
>> Union due week you only got $98.12
>> You worked 50 weeks a year and had a two week "change over" in July with
>> no income.
>> Guys use to raise families, buy homes and new Chevies on $5,000.00 a year
>> back then.
>>
>> Roger.
>>
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"he who knows he has enough is rich."

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