I never forgot those little rubber oval coin purses from my Gilded Youth. They took up almost no room in my pocket, held my coins securely and lasted forever. I figured they were as long gone as other ’50s mainstays like church keys, mechanical watches and Prince Albert in the can. So imagine my shock — and delight — when I found out they’re still made.

Of course, as soon as I discovered this, I had to buy a bunch of them — one for me, the rest for my friends and grandnieces.

As a kid, that purse was perfect for me. And as an adult, it’s still perfect, though it serves a different function. Back then, it held all my earthly wealth; now it carries my magic coins. To clarify: The coins aren’t magical, per se. Instead, they’re the ones I do coin magic with. I use old-time, all-silver coins for magic, and since they’re worth about 25 times their face value, when I’m out and about I want them in something that will keep them in there. So that purse fits the bill, as well as the coins.

Because the purse served my purpose so well, I figured it’d do the same for others. Alas, that’s not so.

I was at the laundromat with Jen-Ex, having a ball, as everyone does on wash day, when I noticed a frown spread across her usually joyful mug.

“What’s up?” I said.

“The coin purse you gave me,” she said.

“What about it?” I said.

“It’s no good.”

“No good?” I said. “It didn’t break, did it?”

“No,” she said. “But look.”

She held it out and I looked at it.

“Yeah?” I said. “It looks fine to me.”

“Look more closely,” she said.

I did.

“Well,” I said, “you’ve got it jammed with so many quarters, some of ’em look about to fall out.”

“Ah-ha!” she said. “You got it.”

“Good to know,” I said, still puzzled. “But what is it I got?”

“That the purse isn’t big enough.”

“Why, sure it is …” I started to say, but stopped.

I realized she was right — it was too small. Or more exactly, it was too small to hold enough quarters for a full wash and dry. In fact, it couldn’t hold enough quarters for one wash.

And once that dawned on me, I realized the purse couldn’t hold enough change to pay for almost anything. Sure, you could buy a beer at the Nail during happy hour, but you wouldn’t have enough to leave a decent tip (and who, but some total schmuck, would stiff a friendly bartender?).

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Big money for a little kid

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So if it holds only a pittance, how had I been so enamored of them back in The Glory Days?

Simple: Today’s pittance was yesterday’s fortune.

The biggest stash the purse can hold, as verified by Jen-Ex, is 12 quarters. Three paltry bucks. And what can that buy? Not a hot fudge sundae, not a gallon of gas, not a movie ticket. But during my senior year in high school, three bucks could’ve bought you two of each of them. Yep, for three frogskins you could’ve taken a date to the flicks, then gone to the Altamont for hot fudge sundaes, and then driven all over hell’s half-acre — or maybe even hell’s whole acre. This is one more reason I look back fondly at those years — things were affordable. The standard of living was good, and the cost of living was great. As for today, I’ve got serious doubts about both.

The cost of living is through the roof. I guess it can be simply “explained” by saying it’s due to inflation. But frankly, I don’t understand what causes inflation. Part of it is supply and demand, so if the supply diminishes and the demand stays the same or increases, the price goes up. But there have to be other factors that cause prices to skyrocket. One is monopolies, as is the case of pharmaceutical drugs in the U.S. The pharmacy companies control the supply of our meds, and our supply of politicians. So the politicos let big pharma set any price they want, and so we pay out the nose for meds … if we have a nose left.

Then of course there’s just plain greed and stupidity. The national pastime of Keeping up with the Joneses pretty much guarantees high-status and highly sought goods can have absurdly high prices, and people will still pay them. Of course the supreme irony is the Joneses don’t actually own any of their glitzy dreck. They’re doing what their “admirers” are doing — paying it off at interest rates that can generously be labeled “usurious.” But it doesn’t stop that race to the bottom.

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When more becomes less

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So the cost of living is bleeding us and is a lot worse than Way Back When. But our standard of living has improved, right?

Again, it depends how you look at it.

For example, the medicine we have today would’ve been literally unbelievable to people of, say, the early ’60s. We routinely cure and correct diseases and conditions that were impossible to diagnose, let alone actually cure back then. It’s perhaps the major reason life expectancy increased so much. That’s the medical good news.

The medical bad news is a whole lot of our population can’t afford adequate health care. And even people who can afford it often don’t have easy access to it due to disproportionate distribution of doctors and lousy public transportation.

But what about increased life expectancy, you ask?

Glad you did, because catch this: Life expectancy has been decreasing. That’s right, and we can’t blame it on the Med Biz, either. Basically, due to some other national pastimes — gluttonly, sloth, drug addiction — the life expectancy is seeing its greatest drop since 1915-18, which included World War I and the Spanish flu epidemic.

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The hidden danger of safety

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Clearly, we live in a safer world than the one of my youth. Cars are a perfect example. They’ve been magnificently engineered so people now walk away without a scratch from a crash that would’ve killed everyone in an old model. We also live in a more efficient world. With cellphones we can get in touch with almost anyone anywhere, at any time.

So what do we do? We combine the two by texting at the wheel, thus driving over the road and Rainbow Bridge at the same time (or maybe more often, driving someone else over the Rainbow Bridge).

And what does all this mean?

I can think of a few things.

First, darn near everything is a trade-off.

Second, progress is not linear.

And last, but not least, while old geezers may see the past in rose-colored glasses, those glasses might be corrected to 20-20.