History Old "pump Jockey" story thread

My grandfather had two Humble Service Station in the 40's - 50's here in San Antonio, right next to the Piggly Wiggly. No one particular story stands out, but I could listen to him talk for hours about the stations. They had the uniforms with the bow tie, the Extra Clean Restrooms and full service.

 

believe it or not thet used to teach new station owners all of those tricks at texaco school. Yea trust the man with the star?

 

My Uncle Dee owned the station. Some of you might recognize him, I’ve told about him here on hamb in other occasions. It was in the late 1940’s, I was 12 or 13. I was just hanging out one summer day when my dad had dropped me off on his way to a cattle auction. I would help Uncle Dee by checking under the hood and wash the windshield while he was pumping the gas and collecting the money. In this one car there were two women. It was summer and they were in halter tops, you know the ones that tie in a knot in front. As I washed the windshield they were flirting and joking with me. They said some things that embarrassed me. Of course at that age if a girl looked at me sidewise it embarrassed me! They were well endowed, good looking, and I was a dumb farm boy. I was probably staring at them through the windshield as I washed it. Uncle Dee got a kick out of it what was going on, teasing me about the women. Under the hood, tied to the oil dip stick was a tag that read ASS FOR GAS. I had no intention of participating, wouldn't have known what to do, but motioned for my uncle to look. He muttered, laughing as he said to the driver, like, “In this station, ass is free, gas costs money!”

 

I worked at all but one station in town in my youth.Quaker State was a 1938
vintage station and the owner was a submarine vet,also the mayor...
Two bay garage was packed like a sub,tires tune-up machine,pipe bender,
portable alignment rack,etc just packed.Full Service? Yep we did weddings
too,at least 4 that I signed as witness. 1974-1980

 

Not really a pump jockey story but worth telling.
When I was a kid, I grew up next to an old Texaco station with a little store out front.
One day, my Dad had me return some bottles. In return I was given some change and bought some soda and gum. On the way out, I discovered the motherload of bottles, located just behind the station.
During the entire summer, I would go out back and grab a few bottles, bring them into the store and buy all the junk food I could swallow.
Keep in mind that I was only 8 years old at the time and thought that I was doing nothing wrong. I thought I had it made.
Towards the end of the summer, the lady who ran the store caught me and told my Dad about my wrong doings. Since it was an honest venture on my part, I only had to clean customers windsheilds for a week.
Lesson learned.

 

Not necessarily old, but in 1986 my first job we had two islands, one full service, one self. Not many folks came through full serv but we definitely liked summertime washing windows for the aforementioned reasons!

Our station was right on the corner of the four way stop and formed the apex of the cruise lane. Since all we had to do was occasionaly clear the self serve, we sat outside and watched everyone go by. Our soda machine was the type you could stick your hand up in and pull out a soda. I'd ask the station manager what he wanted and I knew (through trial and error) where each flavor was. I closed the station most weekends and had to drive the paperwork over to the owner's house, about ten miles away. Never got paid mileage for that, but I guess I made it back in soda.

 

My first "real" job was at a "Flying A" station (I think it was).This was about 1967-1968--I was like 13/14 years old.Had to wear a white shirt and black bow tie!Filled up cars--washed windows--and had to lube every door hinge!To this day-I STILL lube all my hinges!
In 1972, I worked at a Gulf station in a "bad" side of town--I was a big,bad football player--my boss hired me and another football guy to work the night shift--the boss said he'd been robbed before,and said to "do whatever" we needed to do to keep from it happening again.
Sure enuff--couple weeks later, couple of "latin lovers" come in while we were mopping the bays--pull knifes and the whole bad-ass thing. We tease em and they come after us in the bays--both guys fall on their asses.Then my friend and I proceed to beat the living crap out of them with the mop handles-beat em bloody,then put em UNDER one of the hoists to hold em down.Called the cops--cops come and almost piss themselfs.Used to see one cop for years afterwards and we still laugh about it.

 

In the early 70s I worked at a Texaco station on I-40 in New Mexico, every gas station I worked in in those days had a peephole looking into the womens restroom, this one included, one evening I was working and a couple of buddies were hanging around and waiting till I got off, a dude with a fine looking chick came in, she went to the restroom and I saw one of my buddies head to the backroom, I knew he was heading for the peephole, you had to move some oil and bend over the shelf to see in, when he got his eye up to the hole a finger jabbed thru the hole right into his eye, he was standing in the office with his red eye watering when the dude came in and said your the SOB looking at my wife, my buddy took off running down the road with this dude chasing him, never caught him but we still call him Redeye. Spike

 

great stories!

 

Worked at a 76. FAVORITE JOB EVER.

I have many a story. One good one was this old timer would come in to self serve but I would always give him full serve at the self pump. One time he pulled up and I began to fill er up as usual. I was getting ready to wash the windows when I heard fluid hitting the ground. I stopped the pump cuz I thought it was leaking. Turns out the old fella was leaking. Poor dude couldn't get to the head quick enough so he whipped it out right there on the island and took care of business!!! Not the tip I was hoping for!

Summers were the best. I was about 2 miles from the beach. We would car loads of bikini clad gals pouring in. We would literally fist fight over who got to cover the full serve island in the summer!!!

Man I miss those days!

FONZI

 

I started working in a Shell station from 6-10pm at 14, in 1964. At $1.50 an hour off the books I was rollin in the dough! The night manager was Bill, the owners brother and quite a character. He called everyone Schneider and his response to anything was usually "dog gone right".
His pet peeve was when someone would come in and park by the pump and when you came out they would only want directions.
One night it was raining like hell and he went out to serve a customer who had pulled up to the pump. Rolling down their window about 3" they asked "How do you get to Ascan Rd?"
Seizing the moment Bill went wild - he screamed at them "Fuck me??" I come out here in this rain and you say fuck me to me!! He starts gyrating around and screaming and yelling and they freak out and punch it, fishtailing out into the traffic.
We all laughed like hell for an hour, it made a cold wet night a moment I'd always remember!

 

I worked the pumps years ago in a small town out side of Pgh, and a Doctors wife was a regular in her Mercury, and always gave a GREAT show, always bare under the dress and I was never dissapointed. She never let on the it was planed but it had to be. Had never seen one, and that was a real experience for a young guy. She had the cleanest windows in town. She never had a complant about the service.

 

I grew up in Service stations , my dad ran them .I pumped gas part time from 12 till 24 yrs old .
Saw lots of breasts , found plenty of tools , found interesting ways to catch feral cats that thought the roof was a good place to live and got to ride in some wild street cars.
Come to think of it ... some of the best years of my life.
Its a shame that the young guys don't have gas crankin as a cool part time job any more .... Thanks for the yarns guys , brings back some great memories .

 

We did a lot of work on ladys cars,because the word got around that we were fair & good at what we did. Plus we had a front man "Handsome HanK" (couldn't turn a wrench), but looked like a 1940's soldier of fortune. When the girls would drop of their cars in the morning Hank would take them to work and pick them up.
The girls loved ole Handsome Hank.
I had done a tune up on a gals car and the next morning she brought it back--Hank had to give her another ride.
She had switched a couple plug wires around, so she could get next to Hank again. When we told him the deal, he just smiled smoothly and said--that's what I'm here for boys' (what a cat)

 

Not the "OLD" days but back in..........1979? I worked at MOBIL.One night I had ONE of my girlfriends come in and hook me up in the back room.
My boss saw it on video and thought I was tradin his gas for sex. Not only was that the most embarrassed I've ever been watchin the video with my boss but I lost my job ..

 

In the early 60's there was a Sinclair station at 111th and Cicero where a bunch of us used to work the evening shift. The old man didn't care if our friends came by and used the lift and hang out, as long as we didn't harrass the customers daughters or swear much.
He used to do the inventory recap the next morning by counting the EMPTY oil cans. One day they went up to fix the roof and found hundreds of empty cans up there. Another way to suppliment our income was to buy our own oil at the discount store and sell them for retail. It didn't seem like crime then.........

 

I worked at a gas station when I was in high school[early 60's].I liked working the evening shift there was always more interesting things happening when every body was cruising around town. We had a large pyramid of 2 gallon oil cans out front of the station,and one night one of the local"hot rodders" came in a little too fast and hit the cans.He ended up paying for 10 cans that were damaged,and I ended up with a years supply of oil.I used to work night shift ocasionaly,but I gave that up after the regular night guy got kidnapped and robbed at gunpoint.They loaded him and the cash register in the trunk and drove out in the country.They left him off and took off with the cash register.He's a lucky SOB, nowadays they would have just shot him.

 

I've put peanuts in a Pepsi, but never heard of anyone putting them in a bottle of Orange pop


HellRaiser
[/quote]

Hell man, I grew up on coke and peanuts, I still enjoy it to this day. I do it at work some times just to gross out the chick that sits next to me, works every time. Love it when she starts to gag like she's gonna blow chunks.

 

Was our station the only one with the world's largest wrench under the counter?

Doubtful

Don't wanna sidetrack the thread with tales of bravado, we've all heard those. But I do wanna hear what kind of unusual & strange object your station used to whack unruly customers.


Tip for future gas-station macguyvers. Styrofoam cups from the coffee pot are poor choices as gas containers.

 

It was '67, I was in high school working in a Mobil station after school. 3:00 - 12:00, 6 days a week. Pay started at $1 an hour, after 3 years, it was $1.35 an hour.

One night, I took my Mom's '65 Impala wagon to service it. As we were closing, the Impala spit a fan belt. As I was changing it, the Boss kept the station open. A Mustang rolled off the freeway with a flat tire. The Boss fixed the flat as I finished my Mom's car. As the Boss went to work up a bill, I was outside locking up the pumps and oil bins. I walked into the office, pass the customer, a put the keys into the desk. I turned around and saw the Boss with his hands up. The "customer" waved a gun in my direction and I put my hands up. The suspect walked us into the back room and made me lie face down on the floor. He put his pistol to the back of my head and told the Boss he would shoot me if he didn't open the safe.

After cleaning out the safe, the suspect said, "I should kill you but you're my brothers, so I won't!". We heard him walk away, then heard him come back. He said, "I really should shoot you, but I won't". Heard him walk to his car, the door opened, then closed, heard him walk back and said, "I should kill you, but I won't". The suspect finally left.

He was caught the next day robbing a Standard station. In that case, he tied up the lone attendant in the back room. Before he tied up the attendant, he him call his Boss to come down. While waiting, some poor guy in a convertible drove in to ask directions out of town. Just then, the cops showed up alerted by the Boss. The suspect threw his gun onto the back seat of the convertible.

The cops arrested the suspect but because the gun was found in the back seat of the convertible, they detained the guy asking for directions too. Turns out the convertible had just been stolen and the guy was looking for the quickest way out of town.

 

When we were seniors in high school we were riding around one saturday night, a friend was working graveyard shift at a local gas station, we road by about midnight and saw his car but not him,we thought he might be sleeping in the back room and decided to scare the crap out of him, went around the block and parked behind the station, crept up and into the office and over to the door to the back room, it was closed so we jerked it open and everyone started yelling ,including him, he was sitting on a case of oil with a Penthouse mag spanking his monkey, we were rolling in the floor laughing and he was dancing all over trying to get his pants up, the first thing he said was, come on man dont tell anybody, he would never live it down, his last name was Sturtze but by monday everyone in town knew him as Spurtz. Spike

 

Got one!
My Grandfather was a WW2 vet, Pacific theater, combat. He wasn't scared of a lot of things but he didn't like being unprepared. You might come in, he'd buy you a soda, talk a while etc,etc...........The whole time, just under the counter, pointed in your direction was a sawed off shotgun, loaded ready to go. Not knowing any better, you'd think he was a sweet old man and wish him a nice evening.

 

My Dad was a truck driver. He stopped at the pumps and jumped out of his rig. As he walked up to the office, several gas attendants came running full bore out of the garage. As they passed my Dad, he turned and started running with them, thinking the place was going to blow. As he pulled up along side one of the attendants, he asked what was wrong. The guy stopped dead in his tracks and began laughing, pointing to a sign that said, "Fastest service in town!".

 

I worked at a few gas stations in the late 60s, early 70s, mainly Texacos through luck of the draw. The best was run by a just-off-the-boat German named Ernie. A big, friendly guy, Ernie was a factory-trained VW mechanic. He wanted a garage but couldn't find one to rent, so he put up with the nuisance of selling gas, which was my job. And I got to work on everything that wasn't a VW.

In those days VW made strictly air-cooled cars. I watched, too slow to stop him as Ernie learned about engine coolant by opening a hot radiator cap. We once changed four split-rims for a guy on a Coats 10-10 for $2.50 each. The guy couldn't believe the low price--or even that we'd do the work. He made a point of getting the hell out of there. Ernie and I had never seen weird rims like that but we muddled through. It was a bitch, toughest ten-spot I ever earned. The best thing about Ernie was that he gave this underage employee all the beer I wanted. He loved beer. And Germany has no age rules, or didn't then. He thought if I wanted to drink after shift, it was fine with him.

One of the funnier things at that station was my friends--a couple of them had lowriders with hydraulics and big steel spark plates. The kick was to drive down like Sunset Blvd in Hollywood dragging your plate to throw sparks. My friends would drive through the station with the plates down trying to cut the ding-dong hose. They never did, but they rolled the thing clear into the 7-11 parking lot next door and it would bunce back like a bullwhip. Ernie could not believe cars that went up and down.

 

Have many memories of my employment at "Rosehill Mobil" here in Kirkland WA. back in the early 70's. I recall figuring out the bulk grease gun fitting designed for puncturing rubber grease seals would shoot about 75 ft. out to the hiway. We used to laugh like hell when a car would come in for gas with a streak of grease down the side. Of course we had a peep hole into the womens restroom...This was discovered one slow night when the two screws(with no apparent purpose) were removed from right above the office desk. The wall-hell the whole building-was made of sheetmetal. Anyhow as the last screw came out something made a loud crash on the other side. Turns out it was the toilet paper holder in the womens can. One screw was omitted on the reinstall and voila, the job took on a whole new element. Let a pretty girl use the head for a few minutes and a person could have stolen a few sets of tires and a couple of batteries! Had an old Buick full of drunks pull in for gas late one night and I am back putting in fuel and I swear I smell hamburgers cooking. Turns out the front passenger had a hibatchi going on the floor and damned if it didn't look like it was working out pretty well. I could write a small book about the things that went on there...

 

I could write a small book about the things that went on there... <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
__________________
Garbonzo

This thread gets funnier all the time, it should be a book.

 

I worked at our small-town Shell station during high school ..1964 and on... for $1.00 an hour.,worked there over a span of about 6 years and always got $1.00 per hour, but things were cheap then so I always had money.(gas was 26cents a gallon).

I can relate to a lot of these stories, those were fun times, you could work on your cars and wash em every nite if you felt like it; all on company time. Gas stations then were a regular hangout for all your car buddies; it was fun just shootin the breeze and watchin the traffic cruize by. Cars were interesting to look at back then.

I'm surprized no one has posted any pics on this thread. Here's about the only photo
I have of the Shell station where I worked; that's my 56 Chev in the pic; wish I had it back today. I took this photo one evening with my Kodak Brownie camera, which I still have.
The station was torn down about 6 years ago; I salvaged a few bricks from the rubble as souveneers for myself and my 2 brothers who also worked there during that time. Good memories.

 

kinda O/T but read it thru.............in the late 50's my west-kentucky cousin would drive the boss --in his big cadillac--to ST LOUIS or CHICAGO on friday nites. the boss would 'down a pint or two, smoke a cigar'... then sleep til they go to their destination. this went on for some time. one nite they left as usual, when it came time to 'refill' my cousin could NOT wake his boss up! THE BOSS WAS DEAD!
get the picture....... you are in a strange town, you've just filled the tank, and you've got a dead man in your back seat, OF COURSE THE ATTENDANT CALLS THE POLICE!
the cops take my cousin to the 'station', he's questioned, and the coroner rules finally the cause of death a massive heart-attack.
i don't remember how long it took the police to release my cousin, seems like it was almost 24 hours!
I'VE ALWAYS IMAGINED JUST HOW DRAMATIC THOSE HOURS WERE FOR MY COUSIN!

BETCHA THE SERVICE STATION ATTENDANT NEVER HAD ANOTHER 'FILL-UP' LIKE THAT!

red ryder

 

We had a coke machine that sat outside the station, and it got a lot of business after the station was closed. It must have beatin' Leroy Brown out of some coke money--because in the morning the coke machine was found with a big ole bullet hole in it.

man talk about soda pop rage!