Vancouver Province
for September 1, 2000

I guess I just didn’t survive the 70s intact. I mean I was around for the “oil crisis” and all of that and I lived through the days of double digit inflation. But I just don’t believe that things cost the same, relatively speaking, before 1974 than they do now.

Back in 1972 I was a moderately successful lawyer in Kamloops and I took a trip to Britain spending some time in Scotland during which time we stayed at two elegant hotels – Gleneagles, near Perth, and the Old Course Hotel parked deliciously alongside the famous “Road Hole” at St. Andrews. Now I don’t remember what I paid for those stays but I do know that while it was a bit dear, neither my wife nor I fainted when the bill was presented even though both of us ate in the very posh dining-rooms. As I write this I’m in Scotland and had planned on showing Wendy these two wonderful hotels thinking, perhaps, that they might be getting up there a bit in price – maybe a little rich for our pocketbooks - but what the hell.

What the hell indeed. Last July I emailed both hotels to discover that Gleneagles is a touch under 500 quid a night and the Old Course Hotel a shade under 400. I didn’t bother asking if breakfast is included. To translate that into Canadian money we’re looking at $1250 and $1000 respectively for a place to pillow one’s head for the evening!

Have costs of these things gone up 10 times since 1972? I guess they have but I cannot believe that back then I could have afforded these equivalent prices where today I cannot.

Then there’s booze. Back in the seventies, when I could still drink Scotch, I – most extravagantly according to my friends – drank Glenmorangie single malt whisky which cost about $8 a bottle. Recently I went to the grog shop to get my light beer and to pick up a bottle of Highland Park single malt for Wendy’s occasional nightcap nip. For the whisky - just a few pennies back from a sixty dollar bill! I guess that when you compare that to hotels it’s cheap but back in my Glenmorangie days I wasn’t just an occasional nightcap nipper, I’ll tell you!

We sold our Richmond home in 1969 for $26,000 and it recently sold for just under $500,000. A car that I bought in 1972 for $4500 would now cost about $40,000.

Now all of this will be taken by many as pretty matter-of-fact. Where the hell have you been, Rafe? And I guess the answer is that somewhere along the way I went into denial. I got out of the habit of carrying cash and let the better half pay the bills. Any time I do carry cash, say $20, it doesn’t cover a haircut, trim and cappuccino afterwards. Hell, it scarcely covers the cappuccino.

It’s funny when I look at it. Books have gone up, but somehow I didn’t notice that. Maybe they just sort of snuck up on me like gas prices. I consider both to be essentials in my life so I probably just had a long series of little denials as the prices steadily rose. But some things – little things mostly – suddenly hit me. Recently I went to the mall to get a new pen for Wendy’s birthday. Since I knew I would want it gift wrapped I stole $2 out of the bus fare jar to have a cappuccino and a scone while I waited. I was about $3 short. No rip-off, it’s just that my brain hasn’t been re-programmed properly. I use credit cards not cash because it doesn’t seem so bad. When I just sign something, somehow that doesn’t concede anything formally. Besides, Wendy will pay it all by cheque when the bills come in.

Women understand these things better because they shop. They know that butter isn’t 50 cents a pound nor milk 25 cents a quart. In fact they know that there aren’t any pounds and quarts any more, another change I’ve chosen to ignore.

So I guess I surrender. Things are at least 10 times more expensive that they were when I last paid attention.

But for all that, there’s no way I’m paying $1000 a night for a hotel room – with or without a famous golf course under my balcony.