There was a time when your mother would spend $20 on a trip to the grocery store. It would fill up a heavy metal shopping cart with three or so large paper sacks of groceries. The bags were free of charge.

Mom would get some change back after the cashier had entered the price of each item on a modern-cash register that made impressions on simple rolls of paper using an ink ribbon much like a manual typewriter.

And the bag boy — clearly not a politically correct term today on several levels — after bagging the items would place the bags in the basket along with a six pack or two of soda.

The bag boy would then follow your mom out of the store into the parking lot where he would place them in the back of the station wagon.

Sometimes your mother would let you ride in the back with the groceries that would last your family for the best part of a week.

Clearly, this was back in the early 1960s.

Today, $20 in groceries often fails to fill a flimsy plastic bag you have to pay a dime for it if you forget to bring your own.

And if your mom allowed you to ride in the back end of a station wagon with the groceries away from seats with safety belts, one of two things would happen. People would whip out their smartphones and call 9-1-1 or Child Protection Services for a kid being transported in such a manner. Or they would use their smartphones to video the fact someone actually drives a station wagon in the age of SUVs, mini-vans and pickups.

This is not an ode to the day when food costs were lower.

While prices seem to keep going up in a manner much more aggressive than before the pandemic, federal data that folks at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue disdain these days show that these are the good old days.

U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics show in 1960, 17 percent of a typical household income was spent on food whether it was groceries or eating out. That percentage had dropped to 11.2 percent in 2023, the last year data were available.

Food prices have gone up since 2023 but clearly we are not paying the same percentage of our income as in the 1960s.

The average price of a car has gone up from $2,600 in 1960 to $48,000 today.

The cost of a trip to the grocery store hasn’t increased 18.5 times in the past 65 years. Yet, the one thing we almost all universally squawk about are food prices with gasoline — given we’re in California — and PG&E a close second. It’s because it is something we buy at least once a week at grocery stores or indulge in from various dining options — even it is just a latte and such — on a more frequent basis.

As a result, we don’t see the forest for the trees when it comes to supermarkets in the modern-era.

And it’s not just about putting prices in perspective.

Supermarkets have evolved from the days of manual cash registers, bag boys, steel shopping carts, and free paper bags with no plastic option.

They were places where they tried to entice you to spend your hard-earned dollars either with Blue Chip/S&H Green Stamps or promotions such as buying an encyclopedia set a volume at a time each month.

What the shelves were stocked with back then was the envy of 90 percent of the world when it came to selection, brand options, price and even freshness.

American supermarkets such as Save Mart, Safeway, Raley’s, Food-4-Less, WinCo and Trader Joe’s are still steps ahead of other countries when it comes to serving and meeting the needs of the massive.

The American food system — from grower to retailer — has been a hot bed of innovation for well over a century operating on margins that are minuscule in comparison with other sectors.

It’s the end result of competition to secure a bigger piece of the marketplace that can only happen in a society that relies on capitalism to power its economy.

The famous last-minute side trip that the future president of Russia took on a visit to NASA in Houston in 1989 underscores that point.

Boris Yelstin – until June 6, 1989 when he stepped into a Randall’s Supermarket in Clearlake, a suburb of Houston, that was arranged on a 15-minute notice by his hosts – believed 100 percent socialism was the savior of the people.

Yelstin was amazed at what he saw. He couldn’t believe the selection, the inventory, the quality, and various food options such as frozen food and pudding pops.

Through an interpreter, he talked to shoppers and was surprised they were working families. He told a reporter that even the most powerful leaders in Russia did not have such access to food.

Yelstin, up until that day, was convinced socialism as it existed under communism offered people the best standard of living.

It is against that backdrop a poll shows a growing number of young American adults who carry $1,000 smartphones, drink $7 lattes from Starbucks, and spend $120 on a concert ticket believe socialism is the answer for America’s woes, perceived and otherwise.

Those enamored with the siren call of socialism models they skim the surface of on social media are not the only ones that take capitalism for granted.

There is a reason why the United States for the last 150 years and counting has been the go-to destination of migrants, legal and otherwise.

It’s not for the “free handouts” — temporary housing, food, etc. — that are the result of the open door asylum policy put during the pandemic and recently throttled back significantly.

As for those who are not enthralled by socialism, we still take what we have for granted.

Yes, we have waste, inequities, and other issues. But that same person on food stamps shops in the same store as everyone else and has — with the exception of reasonable restrictions — the opportunity to buy the same food. And they often do at supermarkets that are a model in innovation, responsive to consumer needs and wants, and in keeping prices down.

If you doubt the “keeping prices down” bit, how expensive do you think a can of string beans, bread, lettuce, and tortillas would be if supermarkets had only one supplier for each product they carried?

The same goes for supermarket options.

If they all were Raley’s, going grocery shopping would be a lot more expensive. That is not an indictment of Raley’s on any level. Capitalism allows the free market to offer a community wants and needs within its economic parameters.

And the supermarket model reflects everything from service level and variety to more expensive specialty offerings.

Pine all you want for a WinCo and Trader Joe’s.

Given the likely future growth in the household income levels, both will be here sooner or later.

What we should be thankful for is the grocery options we do have that clearly aren’t a one size that fits all households.

You won’t get that with socialism.

Besides, if you look at discount grocers as somehow being beneath you, there are probably 8 billion people or so who would think otherwise if they were to step into — and shop at — a Food-4-Less or a Cost Less Foods.

—  This column is the opinion of Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Courier or 209 Multimedia. He may be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com