Grishka: I indeed supposed the lines to refer to inflation. I simply cannot get the meaning you mention from the lines you quote. "What a dollar used to get us" is not a sum of money, but some commodity; saying it "won't buy a head of lettuce" is incoherent. What a day's work used to get us *is* a sum of money, and saying it won't buy a head of lettuce *is* to say that inflation has occurred.