Good news from the oil front

A few days ago, I saw a headline about oil selling at $90 per barrel.  Perhaps that was the peak, because prices are dropping:

Oil prices dropped further Wednesday ahead of the release of weekly U.S. fuel data expected to show crude stocks rose last week.

Light, sweet crude for December delivery fell 48 cents to $84.79 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midmorning in Singapore. The contract fell 75 cents to settle at $85.27 a barrel Tuesday.

Right now, I’m paying $3.03 at the gas pump.  It’s not the most I’ve ever paid for gas, but I can still remember when prices had a “1” in the dollar place.  (Heck, I can still remember when they had a “0” in the dollar place.)  Which leads me to a question:  Does anyone know how much we were paying for gas in, say 1975, 1977, 1987, and 1997, if those prices were calculated in today’s dollars?  I have a suspicion that we weren’t paying that much less than we are now.  It’s just that, psychologically, we seem to be more traumatized by rising gas prices, than by rising Wheaties’ prices, or rising apple prices, or rising movie ticket prices, or whatever other prices have crept up incrementally thanks to inflation over the last 30, 20 or 10 years.