With his annual tribulation of April 15 yielding the news of how deeply Washington and Augusta had gotten their noses into his feedbag, Lucius Flatley, sage of west Gorham, was inspired to review the comparative cost of living over a historical period.

He asked the following questions: As the pols running for office would have us believe, are we being ruined by high prices? Or are we better off today than we used to be? For facts, he turned to Gorham’s Baxter Library.

And he generated some interesting figures.

Comparing how long a person had to work in order to buy one gallon of gasoline seemed to offer wisdom. Going back to the halcyon days of Jimmy Carter, he discovered that the 1977 hourly pay for production workers meant a gallon of gasoline cost 10.5 minutes, but nowadays a gallon requires 10 minutes. Put another way, a 1980 average annual income would buy 318 barrels of oil, while today’s would buy 332 barrels. Put still another way, today’s price of 115 bucks (at this writing), adjusted for inflation, means only 95 Carter dollars.

He then compared the costs of energy for seven major Western nations over the same period. To acquire energy of all types 40 years ago required these nations to spend 8 percent of their national incomes. Today it’s 6.6 percent.

Even so, these statistics worried him. After all, figures lie and liars figure – he learned that lesson when he sold a pig he raised for Jake Brofee’s Ag class in Gorham High School. Jake gave him an A, but he lost money on the porker. Therefore, he turned to numbers he knew personally.

First – wages: How much did people earn when he was a boy? When Roosevelt was elected, the town of Gorham sanded streets each summer, and men were glad to earn a buck a day on a shovel in Harley Day’s gravel pit on the Gray Road or pitching hay for Norman Richardson when the sun shined. A skilled hairdresser settled for 12 bucks a week. Four years later, after Roosevelt’s battle with the descendants of Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge, a federally mandated minimum wage of 30 cents an hour and a 40-hour week was established. Things improved. A six-day week meant time-and-a-half for eight hours on Saturday – a week’s pay of 15.60, which not only paid the rent, but also was enough to buy baloney for the kid’s school lunches (Gorham scholars carried what they ate). Salaries were for only the fortunate few, such as Gorham High School teachers, who reveled in 800 bucks a year, and the principal, who commanded the lordly sum of $1,200.

Twitching in pain from recalling those wages, Lucius turned to prices.

A new Chevy or Ford sedan (stick shift, with heater) cost $1,000. The best woman’s wool winter coat in Owen-Moore cost $59. A good pair of Thom McAn shoes at Carr’s shoe store in Westbrook cost $3.15. A glass of Ballantine’s beer at Sammy Porello’s bar next door on Bridge Street cost a dime. A double-scoop ice cream cone at Barden’s Drug Store in Gorham also cost a dime. Lunch, with rolls, coffee and pie, at Louie’s Restaurant just down the street cost 45 cents. The Portland Press Herald, delivered by Phil Goodrich, was 3 cents. A double-feature movie (four hours of bliss) cost a quarter at Mr. Knapp’s Gorham movie house. A “private line” telephone was $7.50 a month (with calls to Westbrook a nickel, Portland a dime). One of Flatley’s favorite commodities, whiskey, cost 86 cents per pint at the Greenfront liquor store in Westbrook (Gorham didn’t submit to the enticement of alcohol for 30 more years).

Having accumulated enough statistics on costs, Lucius needed a wage standard for contrast. What could be more fair than the minimum wage – then and now? Thirty cents in 1938 versus $6.60 today – a 2,400 percent increase.

Today, a small automobile (with air and GPS) costs about $15,000 – 15 times as much. But wages are 24 times as much. An ice cream cone costs only 10 times as much today; men’s shoes, 15 times; a good lunch (with pie), 18 times. A good woman’s coat today is $600, 10 times as much, but teachers are now paid 40 times as much. Even gasoline came out better – 17 cents then, $3.50 now, only 22 times. Lucius’ favorite commodity turned out to be only six times more than in those sainted days – and he doesn’t have to go to the Greenfront. Whisky is now sold in Hannaford.

Those figures were enough to convince him to close the library computer, turn on his cell phone and go home to admire his milking machines and new diesel tractor.

Rodney Quinn, who lives in Gorham, is a former Maine secretary of state. He can be reached at [email protected].