I have a granddaughter that just graduated from college and got a job with starting salary of $70,000. Her mother thinks that her daughter is doing so much better than she herself did. $70,000 now was $5,600 when I graduated from college and got my first full time job. However, my starting salary then was $150 per week or $7800.
I financed myself, my wife and four or my six children through college. None of us took any loans. Tuition when I started college was $100 per semester, and $50 per credit in graduate school. All four of my daughters were valedictorians, two have masters degrees, and my wife got her masters when she was in her 70s.

I know it is called inflation. The common man in the street doesn't know what causes inflation, he just thinks it happens. When the 'dollar' gets down to 8 cents, and the government wants to spend 107%+ of the GDP, we are in deep dodo. I remember reading about 70 years ago that in 1928 Germany the value of all the Marks in the country's banks were worth about one cent in US Dollars - i.e. worthless.

Grandpa, Can I asked you a question?
N: Grandpa, Can I asked you a question?
GJ: Sure, Noah. What do you want to know?
N: Well, my dad says that things were a lot cheaper when you were my age. Is that right?
GJ: Not exactly. Let me explain. The money we used when I was 14 is different from the money we use today. Your dad is about 6 feet tall; you could also say he is 72 inches tall. 6 and 72 both describe his height, but in different units. When I was 14 the US ‘Dollar’ was the “Silver Certificate”; let’s call it the SC$. Now the US ‘Dollar’ is the “Federal Reserve Note”; let’s call it the FRN$.
N: What is the difference between the two Dollars?
GJ: Well, Noah, until 1964 the Silver Certificate could be redeemed in silver. The Federal Reserve Notes are backed by US Government Bonds. [* ] - [See comment below about the difference this change means.] Here’s and example to compare. Your parents probably say the cost of gasoline has gone up since it cost 25 cents a gallon when I was 14, and $2.75 when you are 14. The 25 cents was in SC$ and the $2.75 is in FRN$.
Do you understand ratios?
N: Yes, I studied them in 4th grade.
GJ: Good.
The 25 cents when I was 14 was 0.18 OZ of silver.
The 25 cents of today has no silver.
The NY Spot [standard daily value of silver] today is FRN$ 16.64. So the 25 pre-1964 quarter is worth 0.18 X FRN$16.64 = FRN$ 3.00. Correct?
N: Yes
GJ: So, if you bought a gallon of gas today and paid for it with a pre-1964 quarter, how much change would you get?
N: 25 cents.
GJ: That’s correct.
The current melt-down price that pawn shops and other places that buy silver and
gold to melt down were paying FRN$3.00 for a pre-1964 quarter a few weeks ago because it contained about FRN$3.50 in silver. A coin dealer may pay you many dollars more for certain coins in certain conditions.
Now, let’s see if you if you can calculate SC$1.00 in FRN$s and FRN$1.00 in SC$s.
N: Well, SC$1.00 = 4 X 0.18 X FRN$16.64 = 0.72 X FRN$16.64 = FRN11.98. and FRN1.00 = SC$1.00 / 11.98 = 0.08 SC$.
Wow, the current Dollar is only worth 8 cents now. The prices hasn’t gone up, the value of the dollar has gone done!
GJ: You smart Noah.
How must does that gallon of gas today cost in pre-1964 coins?
N: Today that gallon of gas costs 0.08 X 2.75 = .22. 22 cents in SC$. So it is really 3 cents cheaper now than it was when you were 14.
GJ: You’re a smart boy Noah. You are going to be a college professor like you mother and grandfather.

[*] IOUs that will have to be paid by future generations - your children, your grandchildren, and maybe your great-grandchildren. The US National debt exceeded $21Trillion on March 12, 2018 - that’s greater than the economic output of the entire country.

This is my first post. I'm an old-timer, 70 years with film, new to digital, and don't have a lot to share. I am very impressed with what I have seen and learned from UHH. A few months ago there were a lot of barn pictures posted. I thought I might post one, but I had some problems doing it. Now I think I know how, and there are no more barn postings, and the one I'm posting is not unique; the Internet tells me that several dozen similarly painted barns appear in several states. I now live in West Virginia. The barn I am posting is near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, my hometown, where Grant Wood had a studio, and which is near his hometown Stone City, Iowa. I have visited Elton, Iowa several times to see the 'Gothic' house. At the fairly new Visitor's Center just across the street one can borrow, free, clothes and pitchfork for a picture. They will even take the picture for you with your camera.

Route 120 (Tioga Pass Road) is usually closed mid-Oct to mid-May. I don't think it was ever closed in September, and the scenery is beautiful then.
Near the 120 - 395 intersection is Mono Lake which is very photogenic also. Buy, or just view, postcards at nearby gas stations, restaurants, etc to see to some beautiful images the tourists general miss seeing at Yosemite, Bodie and Mono Lake.; you can get similar or maybe better shots.

Angela, I REALLY LIKE your image. In West Virginia we have a lot of sycamore trees which fascinate me in the winter when they are white and leafless, but I have never been able to capture the image I see in my mind - and I have tried many times!

When I first bought my Nikon D800 a few years ago I left the battery in the camera all the time, but I was using the camera. However, I took a short hiatus for health reasons, and left the battery in the camera (it was fully charged at the time). When I next tried to use the camera, it did not function. The battery was not depleted. Nikon told me to ship the camera to them. They fixed it - no charge - but told me to read the manual which says to remove the battery if you are not going to use the camera for a while. I cannot remember the reason this caused the camera to malfunction, but now I always remove the battery if I am not going to use the camera in the near future.

Sorry for such a late reply. I really had a lot more to add to my original post, but I thought it got too long. My original post was meant to show how much cameras (photography) has changed since the 1930s. Actually I did experiment with a home-made pin-hole camera before I got the Brownie. Now the cameras seem to have many more features than one would normally use. I thought it was nice, almost indispensable, to have 5 or 6 features, but ten or fifty options is almost mind boggling. Here is a slightly larger version of my original post which will probably make the 'youngsters' laugh. But we did make nice images with those early cameras.

My father was a portrait photographer for a studio. I helped him in his home darkroom, and i developed and printed my own negatives when I was four years old (1938). I’ve seen a lot of changes over the years.
Before I went to kindergarten I was using a Kodak Brownie camera with a lens, two viewing sites (one for horizontal and one for vertical orientation), a film winding nob, and two levers (one to choose one of two f/stops, and one to choose one of two shutter speeds). The meniscus lens was permanently focused at the hyperfocal distance of the f/stop - about 8’ to infinity. There was a red-filtered hole on the side of the camera which showed which frame number was ready for exposure. I had to load the film in the camera using a very dark room or a photographic black-bag.
Since then I have had several used cameras, each of which added at least one new feature, usually added one feature at a time: focusing, range finder, choose ISO, set f/stop, set shutter speed, meter, interchangeable lens, mount filters, ...
I bought my first new camera in 1959, a Minolta SLR.
My current top camera has a 36.8 megapixel sensor,27 buttons, mic, speaker, 4 levers, 3 dials, 7/8” thick manual, ISO range 100-6400 normal extending to 25,600 with exposure compensation, 4 custom settings with combinations of 54 items, 4 file formats, 2 card slots, still and 2 video formats, ... A recent independent feature film was shot entirely with this camera.
My small-size camera has a 20 megapixel sensor, 3 video modes, and a lot of the above features, and costs less than some smartphones.

My father was a portrait photographer for a studio. I helped him in his home darkroom, and i developed and printed my own negatives when I was four years old (1938). I’ve seen a lot of changes over the years.
Before I went to kindergarten I was using a black Kodak Brownie box camera with a lens, two viewing sites (one for horizontal and one for vertical orientation), a film winding nob, and two levers (one to choose one of two f/stops, and one to choose one of two shutter speeds). The meniscus lens was permanently focused at the hyperfocal distance of the f/stop - about 8’ to infinity. There was a red-filtered hole on the side of the camera which showed which frame number was ready for exposure. I had to load the film in the camera using a very dark room or a photographic black-bag.
Since then I have had several used cameras, each of which added at least one new feature. I bought my first new camera in 1959, a SLR.
My current top camera has a 36.8 megapixel sensor,27 buttons, mic, speaker, 4 levers, 3 dials, 7/8” thick manual, ISO range 100-6400 normal extending to 25,600 with exposure compensation, 4 custom settings with combinations of 54 items, 4 file formats, 2 card slots, still and 2 video formats, … A recent independent feature film was shot entirely with this camera.
My small-size camera has a 20 megapixel sensor, 3 video modes, and a lot of the above features, and costs less than some smartphones.