right on, that is funny. I was wondering when you were going to find this thread. always a pleasure hearing from you.
8 years ago I worked as an evening mechanic at a place in Valpo called Ernie's Shell. I was all alone form 5-10 p.m. There was a battered womens shelter across the back alley behind the impound lot. One of the poor ladies had a man who was building a jeep and we just so happened to have a cj 5 in the impound. He climbed the fence and tried to steal some parts before I caught him. He jumps in his truck and does a neutral drop in a hurry to get out of there and blows the u-joint apart. Cops came and arrested him. I impounded his truck which I had to push a total of six or seven feet. He was super angry after a weekend in jail, a $180 impound fee and four days storage @ $75.
My dad opened a Sinclair station in Lewisville, Tx. in 1950. He worked until 1975 when he died. A friend of ours just got out of the service and bought it from my mom. He hired me right off because I had been there since I was old enough to walk and put a rag in my pocket. I was a junior in high school and it was a pretty good hang out for all my friends. You know you think your dad is straight as heck and would never do anything wrong........Right. Well, we did find the hole in the oil room that overlooked the girls bathroom. My buddies and I were in hog heaven. It was the main road from town to the lake. Saw a many of girl change into her swim suit. What is pretty funny is when you peak through the hole and there she is with here eye up to the hole too. Makes you jump down pretty quick or when there was tiolet paper in the hole where you couldn't see anything. The best story is when the doctors daughter across the street came over as she did everyday in the summer to get her coke. Well today was the day she decided to use our restroom. Of course we were slammed out front at the pumps and it was just my friend and I there. He just looked at me and smiled. I was too busy to go and check it out and he got the eye full. We still talk about it today. Why would she use our old gas station restroom when she had a perfectly good restroom with a/c across the street. And as someone mentioned above about the short skirted girls and how clean we cleaned those windshilds. One other good story from the old gas station and I will quit. My boss was a little guy and we were all pretty big, we thought. My friend was center on the football team and always picked on him. He kept telling him to stop or he was going to shoot him. He just kept on and on. One day Phil brought his shot gun to work and had taken the bb's out and packed the shell full of paper. I wouldn't try this at home!!!! So here comes my big friend smiling and going right for Phil when he told him again to stop or he was going to shoot him. He didn't and after some wrestling around Phil got his shot gun out pointed it right at my friends chest and pulled the trigger. His eyes were as big as saucers. He was shot in the chest. He grabbed his chest fell to the floor and just knew he was dead. After a few minutes he realized he was o.k. He grabbed himself up and never picked on Phil again. I learned a lot of lifes leasons there and wouldn't take anything for all the memories.
ok, i thought that the guy with the blow up doll was funny, but you win the prize! there is a guy here in the tricities that we call Dan Dan the Camero Man, he has a pack of dogs protecting his property at night.
nice, damn hippys. that reminds me of that college movie, PCU. what don't we eat?...meat!...why don't we eat it?...it's murder!... and all that.
I worked my way through college at Burt's Gulf (now Chevron) here in Ruston, LA. It was the best job I ever had! The Burt's must have worked hundreds of young men through college at that station. There are hundreds of stories from when I was there..... we set stuff on fire, exploded stuff, fights, crazy customers, etc.... I guess the craziest thing that happened directly to me was an altercation with a rabid dog (not really rabid, but crazy all the same). We had an old farmer from around here come in the station to get a tire fixed on his old farm truck. While me and a co-worker (another college guy, Tyler) worked on getting the tire off the truck, we noticed that he had a dog inside the cab that was going berserk! I mean this dog was foaming at the mouth mad that we were touching this truck. But, all the windows were up.... so we weren't too concerned that it would get out. After we fixed the patched the tire and put it back on the truck, My buddy Tyler started bouncing a tennis ball off the side window of the truck and, of course, this made the dog even madder. We laughed it off and walked into the station office to settle up with the old farmer. While the farmer paid us, I mentioned that his dog was crazy and asked if there was something wrong with it. The old farmer said "naw, there aint nothin' wrong with that dog, other than he is protective of my ole truck. If I let him out he is nice as can be". I told the farmer that I believed him and he didn't need to let the dog out. We all kind of laughed about the situation and the farmer walked to get in his truck. I walked out front (by the pumps) to get me a dip of skoal. And I'll be damn if he didn't let that dog out the truck! The dog ran strait at me and stopped .... I froze, then without moving my head looked down... I could see the dog's tail wagging. I thought "I'll be damn, the farmer was right... he aint mean when he is out of the truck". Then, that's when I screwed up!!! I looked down to pet the dog .... that SOB jumped up at me and sunk his teeth in, from my nose to my chin ... It torn open my nose and punctured my chin... as I pushed the dog off my face I kicked the hell out of it and ran for the bathroom. Needless to say, I had to go into the emergency room for some stitches. The animal control had to get the dog and confine it to make sure it wasn't rabid. It wasn't and the old farmer never came back to the station. I still have the scares on my nose! Anyway, that's just one story... I could go on for days. I moved back to Ruston, LA a few years ago fill up every week at Burt's... nothing has changed. It is a true time warp!
Back in the day I had a foreigner woman pull into our station way too fast. If I remember correctly she was in one of those toyota vans. As she heads for the last pump on the island she misjudged the angle and caught the concrete filled post right at her front door and proceeded to destroy the side of her van right to the back tire. Unfortunately for her, the post never moved. Then in broken english she says "fill it up", paid and left. She never even got out to look at the carnage. Another time some idiots robbed the deli next door to us one night and figured they could load a Chevy van in our lot as their getaway car. Well, they broke into it OK but couldn't get it started with no cylinder head. Then we had these two old italian guys in their 70's or 80's that used to come in. Nice old guy's with cigars and hats, real old school. One of em' was my partners Uncle. Neither one could drive. So one day they come in to pickup the ones "64 Pontica" (not a misspelling!) I say you mean the 84 Pontiac? So he pays and the two guys are ready to leave. The one guy is trying to walk out by pushing on the office window. I show him over to the door and he's OK. The other guy is now in his Pontiac and wants to make a left across 4 lanes of traffic. After a couple minutes he's tired of waiting so he just turns the wheel and floors it. Lotsa skidding and lotsa cursing but he made it home OK. And some variation of this would go on every time they came in.
Sometime during the 80's I had borrowed my dad's green 1971 plain jane Dodge Dart 4 door with dog dish hubcaps. I had a friend with me and I needed gas. I pulled up to the pump, got out to fill her up and discovered the gas door was on the opposite side of the car. So I stetched the hose across the trunk of the car and with the nozzle turned upside down, it would just fit into the gas door. I started pumping and after a minute or so a small steam of gas started shooting out from where the hose connects to the nozzle. Then it got bigger and suddenly the hose separate about half way from the nozzle. Gas was shooting up three feet into the air like a fountain in the park! I, like an idiot, jumped in to hit the trigger on the nozzle but that had no effect. The car was getting soaked and so was I. Fortunately my friend jumped out of the passenger side door and hit the emergency shut off button on the pump. Gas was everywhere but inside my gas tank. As we stood there, another car drove up dragging it's muffler. We freaked out! I ran inside and told the attendance there was a big gas spill and he acted like it was nothing. I threw him a $20 and got out of there as fast as I could.
Mid 70's, full service station. Had an old lady pull in every week on the same day, same time. She always put in $3 worth of "Ethyl". After putting it in and washing the windows, she would start her questions. How's my oil? Would you check the water in the radiator? Could you check the air in all my tires? Would you check my lights? Just when you thought she was done and the car was perfect, you reached for the $3 she was dangling and she said....my battery? Every week! Swamped one day. Only person at work. Trying to do an oil change, swap a battery, 20 tires needed fixed, pumps were steady. I was about shot when this jerk comes in and demands I fix his tire immediately. I tell him I'm very busy, will get to it as soon as I can. Every time I step into the office to ring a sale up, he jumps me. He's giving the "I know the owner and he's getting a call!" speach. After more than a half hour of waiting he disappears. The owner comes in not dressed for work and starts helping pump gas. When we get the island cleared off, he asks what's next. I tell him there was a jerk wanting a tire fixed and I was just too busy so he left. Boss says fine, we don't need anymore jerks. As we walk into the shop to start getting caught up in there, the jerk is trying to figure out the tire machine. My boss (the owner) looks at me and points, I nod and he walks over to the guy rolling another tire that was laying there. "Hey buddy, I need this tire fixed", he says. The guy mumbles something and the boss starts to make a big deal. "Fix this now you jerk or I'm calling the boss" he yells at this guy. The guy looks at him and says "I don't work here, tell that stupid kid over there to do it! Calling the guy that owns this shit hole probably won't help, he must be retarded for the help he hires." The boss says "you don't work here? Then what the hell are you doing touching my stuff? Get the hell out of here, I'm the retarded owner!" Guy took his tire and rolled off down the street, the boss looks at me and as the guy starts to leave the shop says, "there are enough assholes in the world, don't take shit off jerks like that, we don't need his kind for business", patted me on the shoulder and bought me a pop. Had a kid come in one night and wanted a headlight fixed. 70 SS nova, big block 4 speed all beat to shit. Was a nice car earlier in the day at school. I went to unplug the headlight and there was dried concrete all over the engine compartment. Got to looking closer and there was concrete all over the frame, floor pan, back bumper was full. Kid comes back to get his car and just as he sits in it, the cops pull in. He had just drove down a new street with fresh concrete. Totaled the car, bought a street. Life was good, SPark
Best I got is working at a Flying "A" Gas Station in the mid 60's in Fullerton, CA-this was the home of the Ritchie and Ritchie Flying "A" Super Stock drag racing team To be around genuine factory supplied Super Stock '63 & '64 Plymouths wilth aluminum frontend, etc was great. They even towed one to the high school car show one time and left me the keys to start it up (no mufflers) as long as I didn't try to move it. Won top trophy-wish I kept the trophy, etc I used to have. The Son, Darrel?, who was the driver had his legs crushed while standing at the starting line when two dragsters launched and one went sideways and hit him.
In about 1962 I was working part time in a station at 44th and Agnew in Okla City and had an experience that I still tell about today. It was on a Saturday night and two drunks came in driving a '56 Chevrolet and bought a few bucks worth of gas. When I finished pumping I moved to the front of the car as they had raised the hood and it was common practice to check the fluids if the customer so desired in those days. The driver was complaining to the other drunk that passing gear wasn't working as he was revving the engine up with his hand. Evidently the car was in neutral because when his buddy pointed down at the shift linkage and told him that it operated the passing gear he reached down and moved it into drive. The car took off and ran into an old empty house next door and nearly knocked it off the foundation. It was sitting against the house with the tires spinning when they ran over, backed it up, slammed down the hood and took off. Of course the front end was back about a foot and the hood didn't align very well because it was up when it hit the house. They took off heading west and I never saw them again but I sure hope one of them is a member and can get up their version. Thankfully all three of us where standing next to the car and not in front of it. Jimmy Parker
Back when I was around 21-22 and working at the garage, there was a well endowed divorced woman who came in regularly to get work done on her car. She had 4 equally endowed daughters with her most of the time, all jailbait! She used to bring us a loaf of home baked bread or a pie. But she always asked for me, so the boss and the other guys always ribbed me thinking I was taking care of her, or she was trying to fix me up with one of her daughters........ They did come in quite often on the weekends when I was there alone too..........I always wondered about that. During the summer months, standing on that pump island, we always got to see some sights. Amazing how some women are oblivious to the guy washing the windshield, enjoying the view.
I was filling up my car at a Chevron in Monterrey, CA, when a couple of teenage girls pulled up behind me and proceeded to wash down and wipe their entire, fairly new car with the dirty squeegee and water that was next to the pump. My pump clicked off but I stuck around to enjoy the sight... they asked me if I wanted mine washed too, but I said "no thanks, its a rental". I wonder what their daddy said when he saw that car, it must have been scratched to hell.
I was working that day when the Blizzard of 77 hit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-gRb_MuUgg We had a pretty significant general snowfall the evening before the storm hit. I had to run 5 gallons of fuel oil to a house about 3 miles from the station, people are pretty dumb about running out of home heating oil, or broke enough to buy it only 5 gallons at a time. I delivered 5 gallons with a can in the trunk of my Corvair. I got to the people's house, and their driveway wasn't plowed, nor the road for that matter. Plodded through the snow, and got the can to their door. Owner wanted me to put it in the tank out back. This is when the storm really started picking up. I said, no thanks, I gotta get out of here, bring back the can later. Barely made it back to the garage when the storm hit in earnest. We just sat in the office and watched. Cars and trucks were pulling into the station and basically getting burried as we couldn't see to plow and there were too many stuck cars too fast. There was a restaurant attached to the garage, luckily and every booth and stool was full pretty much for the duration. And of all things, a bread truck was stuck in the parking lot. I lived a quarter mile from the garage and was able to get home driving a Corvair, and actually made it back to the garage the next day when the snow was letting up. The guy who usually plowed our parking lot had his Dodge Power Wagon stuck at his house and needed someone to take the 65 Scout he had at the garage over to his house to try and pull him out. Of course the Scout had no plates or insurance and I got elected to head over there. But while I'm out, stop at the store down the street and make a beer run. We knew that beyond the store the road ws completely impassable with 10 ft drifts. I headed out and 3 cars tried following me.They didn't get far, and they ended up abandoning their cars. I got that Power Wagon out and he came to the garage and did what he could. While everyone was trapped I made several trips to the store for beer. The person I took the fuel oil to called looking for more. The road they lived on was a secondary road and was impossible to get down. They called the fire company who was dispatching snowmobiles for emergencies. A fireman on a snowmobile came to get fuel oil for those people, but our only 5 gallon can was at the person's house yet..........they had to borrow some Jerry cans from somewhere and come back. It was a lot of work getting cars up and running again, and unstuck. Some people were grateful, and tipped well. Others blamed us for not having the parking lot better plowed. People in the restaurant cried and griped because they wanted food available at all hours of the day. They complained as how bad the restrooms got with 60 people using 2 bathrooms, and no-one wanted to help clean, or do dishes. And many had no money for food, etc......... That 65 Scout worked so good in the snow, I bought it. Used it for many years and would go through anything.............
In 1970 my brother-in-law to be owned a Gulf station. I worked there for FREE some at nights and weekends, trying to score points with his sister. During some down time I had repaired a dented fender on a 64 Volkswagon that I was driving, and spotted it in with lacquer and rubbed it out. Looked pretty good from a few feet. Well, my father in law to be worked there too and he saw what I had done. He owned a well worn 67 Galaxie that had the original faded light blue paint that was already down into the primer. He starts wanting me to repaint this beast. Of course, he thinks I can do anything and I do too although I've never painted anything over just spotting a fender with lacquer. I've done a little bodywork, but I'm not and experienced painter. But I said sure, I can do it. So we do the little bodywork it needs, sand it down and prime a couple of places. I remember that I had the most expensive paint gun that Sears sold back in sold days, I cost around $45 or so. The acrylic enamel paint and thinner were about $35 and he paid for that and the masking tape. Yes, we used newspapers and no one used the special paper back then, too expensive. So now I was ready to spray this car after we closed one night in the service bay. No mask, no ventilation other than cracking the bottom of the bay door. Hell, I'm 18 years old and I'm invincible! And never sprayed a car before, just watched someone! Well I hook up the spray gun and start spraying the car. I notice that the paint looks awfully 'dry' and 'powdery', but I assume that it will flow on out. As I continue spraying, the room is filling up with a blue fog and I'm getting light headed. I'm doing pretty good with my patterns and overlapping, etc. but the paint is still looking 'dry'. I can barely see the car when I finish up. As I close the door and step out into the station sales area, my father in law and brother in law are laughing their heads off. Seems I look like a member of the 'blue man group'. My hair is blue, my face is blue, my clothes are blue, etc. When the fog clears they peak in the window and comment about the dry look of the car. I tell them I think when it dries it might look ok. I don't know, but I'm hoping. Well the next day we go in and the car looks worse than the night before. Today, some guys would pay good money for a job like this. I was the perfect 'suede' job. As we were untaping the car, I'm telling them that it'll buff out. Sure it will. Again I don't know, but I'm hoping. Later in the day a friend drops who IS a painter stops by for some gas. He sees the car sitting in the bay and sees all of the blue overspray on everything in the bay and starts laughing out loud. Then he starts inspecting the car closer. He asks who painted the car and finally I own up to it. Then he tells me it looks like I did a pretty good job except for one thing; I didn't have my regulator set on the proper air pressure. Regulator? What is a damn regulator? He starts laughing again. He asks where the compressor is for the station and we show him. Then he tells us the problem. I had sprayed the car with 140lbs of pressure instead of 40lbs. I had no regulator in the line! I asked him if it would buff out and he laughed again. A couple of weeks later we tried to buff the top of one fender and it just gummed up on the pad. What a mess! To this day I can't live that down with my brother in law! But even with the 'suede' paint it looked better than before!
It was around 1977 and I was working in a big service center. I still recall the car I was working on, it was a 1964 Nova. I was putting the car up in the air to do brakes and up staggers one of my big-drinking coworkers. He asked if he could crash in the back seat since he was so hung over. I said, sure. I totally forgot about him in the back seat and he was like 6'6" and 260 lbs. I took the car for a road test after the brake job and I guess I woke him up. All of a sudden he sits up in the back seat, scared the crap out of me! I came close to wrecking the car. We did laugh about it over a few beers at lunch. Bob
Speaking of drinking at work... I worked at one place when I was between real jobs, gassing cars up and doing minor repairs. The place had one of those old Coke machines that had the fluted 8 or 10 oz bottles in it. Wouldn't you know that Michelob 7 oz bottles worked perfectly in it. The boss would fill it up every day and the beer was even on him, it needed no money. I was glad to get out of there and back to a more disciplined job, those hot as hell summer afternoons were killers. Bob
I would walk down to the local 76 station as a kid and hang out with these 2 brothers who owned it. I was 14-15 and loved hanging out at the station. I would do odd jobs and just poke around and learn things. A lady came in and asked for a refund from the machine in the ladies room. I asked if he wanted me to fill it up. He looked at me with a look that said I should know better. "We don't fill that one up!" "Why?" I said. "Any broad that will come in and complain they lost money in the rubber machine can have her .50 back!" They claimed to make more money on the empty machine than the one in the men's room. FP
During the "energy crisis" of the 70's our Sunoco Station was put on allocation. What that means was, we could only purchase 80% of the gas we bought the previous year on any particular month. What we were told to do was to limit people to a 5 gallon purchase to make our supply last. Now that made a lot of sense, as a person would just go station to station and get 5 gallons at each until their tank was full. This would only waste gas while people drove to get more. My boss just sold as much as anyone wanted, until we were out, then cut evening hours and concentrate on repairs only. This went on for a couple months until we found a loophole. Though we had a Sunoco sign out front, we could purchase as much as we wanted from the Texaco distributor as a new customer. Our Sunoco supplier was having fits and we had to take down the Sunoco sign, but we were selling gas. Our Sunoco pumps are unique as they are "custom blended" meaning their are several options on what gas to purchase, 190 to 260 which was the "Super Premium" every option in between was a blend. Problem was, if you were out of the 190 grade, all you had was the Super Premium. When prices were up, figure out which gas you ran out of first. I would tell customers all we had was the Super Premium. Many got a couple bucks worth, many would say,"I don't want to blow up my motor with that stuff" and drive away. Many would accuse me of lying, or ripping them off. Watched many drive away heading east. I think the next gas station that way was 10 miles. About 8 miles heading west. But if you went North at the intersection there was another one a few miles away. People unfamiliar with the area would not know that.
Mid '70's; The Russell's had a cool lil' BP on Shelley Street near my place. They gave me one of my first paying jobs when they had me signwrite a horse float. Amateur- I mis-spell one the words, so I fix it. A slow job taking twice the time to do. Hanging around there you'd see cool cars. Mr. Russell had an clean Austin Atlantic which he obviously cherished- a truly ugly twin carb car. A Pommy bloke in a tweed cap used to come in with a red fastback Mini Minor which if I recall correctly had a mild chop. Tight fit. Pure business! One arvo I'm sitting in the shade at the apron edge, with a red & black '36 Ford fordoor sedan (Adelaide cats will recall) being topped up just in front of me. The fella gets back in and cracks this beast into life. Sounds angry, not relaxed as it was pulling in. A rev, a crunch, Whack!- peeeeellll- ouuutttt - the old Ford had a revvy lil' manual Chevy 283 with a quick clutch on board. Loud and glorious old lion of a sedan!
Back in the mid 80's I was working at a local Marathon station part time. We were on a main highway, so we got lots of people asking for directions. One evening a guy(?) pulls up and asks "Where's the gay bar?" Problem was that I knew (no, I'm NOT!), so I told him. Thinking back, I should have given him directions to the local biker bar. That would have been fun to watch. One more ... the station was reasonably close to a road course race track. Man pulls in for full-service - asks for a fill-up. I had a dickens of a time getting the gas door on the car to open. Finally did, but with a fair amount of time wasted. Tank filled, the guy hands me his credit card - MARIO ANDRETTI! He didn't ask me to be part of his pit crew.
I was working at 76 gas station a woman comes haulin a$$ into full service , jumps out of the car yelling "call 911 , i think my cars on FIRE !" So i see the smoke start pouring out from the front end...meanwhile we are trying to get this damn car rolled away from the pumps we also noticed she had left her daughter in the back seat... long story short by the time we stopped the electrical fire and got her kid out...her car ended up looking like a flocked xmas tree. What an idiot! My auto instructor used to work at gas station( 70's i think). Right down the hill is a watercress farm. One night he goes to take the tank reading and spears the stick down the hole.....a couple weeks later the watercress field gets polluted and there crop starts dying OOPS! The farm is still around so luckily it was reversible.
Worked in a Phillips 66 station in the 60's. Made $1.00 an hour. Was probably overpaid , it was easy to figure your paycheck.
Similar thing happened to a guy I was working with at a texaco station back in '66. He had to tune up the engine and rebuild the carb. on a '57 Ford wagon . He decided that while the carb was soaking in the carb cleaner,he'd hook up a starter button;put an empty oil can under the gas line and changes and set the points. Of course he didn't disconnect the coil wire. First crank, the can of gas went up;he grabs the can;burns his hand and throws the gas onto a pile of tires I was in the process of patching. Luckily, I threw the burning tubes and tires outside and hosed them off damn quick and the rest of the gas burned out quickly. Only minor damage to the garage and two weeks wages from the guy to replace the tubes and tires that burned.
Where I worked. We had a van with a straight chevy 6. Were pulling the head to send out for a valve job. everything disconnected, but head would not come off. Boss decided to crank over the motor and let the compression pop it off. With the fuel line open and spark plug wires lying loose. One crank then fire! Used the extinguisher and put it right out............but the motor compartment was a grease pit and now with all that dry chemical there, it was a real mess. Took forever to clean it up.
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