Back When 50 Cents Meant Something

Yesterday, Linda and I were driving down to Childersburg and we got to discussing passenger trains. She was telling me about a trip that her 5th grade class made from Birmingham to Childersburg on a train. When I was in the 5th grade, several years earlier than she was, my class had made a similar train trip, from Sylacauga to Alexander City. In discussing the trips, I was reminded of a funny incident that happened on my train trip. A vendor came through the car selling concessions. One of my class mates jumped up and asked him how much for a Coke. The vendor replied 25 cents. My classmate immediately dropped back into his seat. We all laughed. In those days, a regular 6 ounce Coke cost a nickel. To us, the quarter Coke was as extravagant as $6.50 beer is today at a professional baseball game.

This morning I was thinking again about the train trip and how much money has changed in my lifetime. It brought to mind a story my father told me. He was showing me an old 12 guage shotgun. It was pretty well used up but he said that he had bought it from and old colored man (back then we were not familiar with the term African American) down at Speed. He said that the old man said he had found it in a briar patch. Daddy said that he believed it to be the gun that one colored man, whose name he called but I have long since forgotten, used to kill another colored man in Speed. One man killing another wasn't all that unusual, that kind of thing has been going on ever since Cain and Abel. No, what was interesting was why he killed him. Seems that the first man, the one that did the killing, had loaned the second man 50 cents. After a reasonable period of time, the first man asked the second man for repayment. Apparently the second man made excuses for awhile, but eventually he grew tired of having to make excuses and told the first man that he did not have any intention of ever repaying the 50 cents. Upon hearing that, the first man went home, got his 12 guage single shot long tom shot gun, went back to the field where the second man was working and killed him.

This incident happened sometime before 1950. Now many may say that this was a killing on a matter of principle and I can partially accept that argument, but even so, who would kill anyone today over 50 cents? 50 cents has become so inconsequential that if you give it to someone, you would hardly consider it a loan. And if you did give it to someone, what would they do with it? Not much. If you used your shotgun to kill them over it, you would probably spend more than 50 cents on the shell. Gives new meaning to the phrase "not worth the powder it would take to kill him." No, 50 cents meant something back when this incident occurred but it doesn't mean much anymore.