The rally cry in 1959 was, I got a dollar on a case!

[Toto'sDad]

That magic summer of 1959, I was surrounded by larger-than-life characters, the rally cry of a guy named Billy was I got a dollar on a case. You could buy a case of Lucky Lager or Coors then for four bucks. Soon three of us would pitch in, and he'd go get a case of beer, he was just twenty-one, the rest of us were all underage. Sometimes after we drank the case, we'd go on about our business, other times we'd spend the rest of the day, and sometimes night hollering "I got a dollar on a case."

 

[thunderbyrd]

i was born late in 58, but i might would have been willing to go in on that.

 

[kuch]

not '59 but when I was 18 in '71, I worked on a construction job and some days after work the guys would say "dollah dollah". this meant that whoever wanted to, gave a dollar each and someone went to the store with the collection and picked up beers and "pupu's". We found a spot to sit around, watch the girls walk by, and suck down some beers. The scenery wasn't too bad there in Waikiki.
good times

 

[Toto'sDad]

When booze and the comradery that comes with it are both new to you, ain't nothing like it in the world. It's too bad, I couldn't have just looped the summer of 1959, over, and over. I loved the music, the girls, the times, the cars everything was just one big, long coooooooool!

 

[tlsmack]

All my best stories begin with “me and Billy were hanging out and then…”

We were both underage but i was tall, which in the 1970’s was a valid form of I. D. The key was we would never buy beer in our neighborhood. Shop owners who knew your mother were not likely to sell you beer.
We used to have beer chugging contests all the time. In the 1 to 6 beer category I was undefeated. Billy would catch up around 12 and could kill a case all alone.

 

[KWal]

As a bald faced private at my first duty station in 1985, some of my fondest memories were sitting in the squad bay at 2:00 in the afternoons when the squad leader would holler out "PX Run!". We'd all chip in and run across the parking lot for a thirty pack of Strohs. We'd all then sit around telling stories and trading lies. Good times and comraderie. Still good friends with a number of those fellows.

 

[Wheelhouse]

There was a drinking age it 1959? What kind of nonsense is that?

(Last state in the union to implement a drinking age, raised from 19 to 21 in 1986.)

 

[Stubee]

When I was growing up in Michigan in the 1960s Coors Banquet was a delicacy. Guys visiting out that way always remembered to buy a few cases for us to enjoy back home. It was my favorite beer for many years, and when I moved to Albuquerque the Coors truck had 10 cent per pint night at the minor league baseball park, an event you had to attend to appreciate.

I hit hard times out in Albuquerque with my wife leaving & me paying voluntary child support for our son. My tastes were pushed down a ways and a six pack of Burgie for 98 cents IIRC became the new delicacy, savored over multiple nights to make it last.

It was actually a great time to be a young man.

 

[Nightclub Dwight]

I grew up in Connecticut, but we had a house in Vermont as well. Vermont raised the drinking age to 21 just four months after I turned 18, which meant that I was grandfathered in. My dad was pretty strict, actually, very strict. But when we'd go to Vermont on the weekends I would order a beer and he would grudgingly ignore it. No such luck the next day back in Connecticut. I always felt like I was getting away with something.

 

[Toto'sDad]

There was a drinking age it 1959? What kind of nonsense is that?

(Last state in the union to implement a drinking age, raised from 19 to 21 in 1986.)

It was maybe, still for all I know 21 years old in California in 1959. Over on the west side of Delano, I could drink at the bar when I was 17.

 

[Toto'sDad]

I think in the summer of 1960, which was nowhere near as glorious as the summer of 1959. A Coors distributer buried a truck load of bad beer on a local farmer's property out east of the little town I lived in. The farmer was sworn to secrecy, but before long one of the workers knew about it, then it seemed like half the town was out there digging for beer.

What was wrong with the beer was the lacquer they lined the insides of the cans with, (I think they were steel cans in those days) was coming off the cans and getting into the beer. They couldn't sell it, so someone came up with the bright idea to bury it.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't poison because all of us kids who could round up a shovel were out there digging. We dug up all we could before the Sheriff's office came out and ran people out of the field. We took our share to town, got some washtubs, and ice from the icehouse (15 cents a block then) and had a great time 'til the beer ran out. Man, it was like a gift from out of the blue!

 

[acousticnitemare]

At one point early on I was part of a group of guys who hung out together- all the time.
When one of the guys threw a party, the guest list opened up- wide. Lots of girls, too.
It was all very controlled, and everyone there knew almost everyone else there, so never a whisper of trouble.
One fellow named Joe (really) would show up only if invited. He was often invited.
He was built like a (U.S. NFL) pro football linebacker. He'd walk in with a (cardboard?) case, with a lid on it, of Budweiser in bottles, say hi to everyone, then sit down and proceed to polish off the entire case by himself, bottle by bottle. He was very mellow and courteous. Each empty went back into its place in the case. It did take him until some time after midnight to polish the whole thing off.
At one particular party, my curiosity got the better of me, and I watched him (without staring, or so I hoped) down the whole case. I couldn't believe it. I don't remember that he ever got up to use the restroom.
If you get out some, you see different things and it widens your experience set.

 

[Tarkus60]

My buddy Gary grew a full beard at 15. He could get served at the Maplewood Inn.
A case of Miller long necks was around 4 bucks.

 

[Tonetele]

I remember drinking in pubs under aged at 17, the war was on and the cops got theirs at closing time , by "not bothering " hoteliers about under aged drinkers , who could get get called up but not yet able to be legally served. The cops were cool about this.. Four pints for less than $2 , that's all I had, needed and could afford. Now you pay $8 a drink of beer in a pub.
So now I pay about $50 gor Miller or Bud. That's the most economical way; BUT do not drink and drive. That costs a few hundred and loss of licence for a few monyhs. Also, they can impound your car for 30 days, that's another $1,000.

 

[brindlepicker]

I remember being on a factory bowling team after our second shift in ‘86 and the price of beer at the alley went from 90 cents to a buck a bottle. It was outrageous.

 

[brookdalebill]

I first started buying beer (legally) in 1975, when I turned 18.
That was the drinking age here at the time.
As me, and my tribe were, uh, financially unstable, price mattered.
Old Milwaukee was the most affordable, at about $1.89 a six pack.
We (the tribe) would sometimes pool our money to buy it.
It wasn’t too bad if you got it cold enough.
If one of us was flush, meaning having $5, we might buy Michelob.
That was “payday” beer.
I abandoned beer (except for Grolsch) long ago.
Thanks for listening.

 

[stormsedge]

Thank God I lived through that.

 

[Phrygian77]

When I was teen, it was everybody chipping in for a keg of beer.

 

[stepvan]

Friday night like clockwork we had the pallets ready and the beer bought and some great times. Once school was out for summer we would be out at a few parties a week rolled with the same three guys right thru school and we were pretty much invited to just about everything. Busch light and ice house was the order of the day

 

[imwjl]

1959 is my birth year but here are some items for perspective.

$4 November 1959 dollars are $40.50 November 2022 dollars.

My mother reminded that families like ours were not welcome in places where they are today.

My daughter's pal is a true elite hero - a young pilot, mechanical engineer and officer in the USA Air Force. The catch with that pilot is her gender and skin color. No way would she have the same opportunity if her clock was turned back to 1959.

In most cases the good old days are mostly just old. That doesn't say we don't have problems and challenges now.