Agh, memories of my hometown and a real service station....
There was this old guy that owned the garage in the very small town I grew up in. He sold gas, he fixed cars, he had an air hose out front of the station for anyone to use...free.
I remember the day I heard about the scandal. Someone cut the hose, stealing the nozzle off the end. That didn't matter...the old guy just said: "It's probably kids", and put a new end on the hose and kept going.
This same guy and his wife, who were well into their late 70s, lived above the garage. The fuel was a cash business. People just left their money on the cash register in the small office in the front of the garage...coming and going as they pleased. Every now and then he would open the cash drawer and put the money on top within.
Once he was robbed by one of the local kids...a jerk a couple of years ahead of me. He saw the kid take off with the money from the cash register. He told a couple of guys in town that he knew who did it, word got around through town that the kid did it...typical small town gossip. But the cops were never called, no charges ever pressed. The kid did return the money, and the old guy said to him: "If you need money, I could always use help!"...the kid started working for him, sweeping up, etc and held the part-time job for years.
Yes, that's my memories of our local service station. Spent many Saturday mornings there with my Dad, helping out, patching tires, etc. You see, as I said, the old guy was in his late 70s and couldn't do all the work himself anymore, so it was quite common to take your car in and have to help with the "heavy stuff", or the "fine details" (his eyes and fingers weren't what they used to be).
His name, the old guy? Wendell. A very nice guy. The sad part of the story is that he was the kind of guy that was the nicest guy you would ever meet, and loved his life, loved other people, and loved his country. He also loved his freedom, and drove everywhere until almost 83. But one day, he turned left too early for his turn on a busy highway with his 1955 Ford pickup...right in front of two teen girls in a small import car. He and his truck were fine, the girls died on the scene. He was never the same after that.
Yes, the old days were better in so many ways....BTW, most of these memories aren't that old; circa late 1970s.
TJR
i got to see a lot of nice legs during the time i worked for them.
