Working at a gas station in the 1960’s

Don’t remember the red stuff. Do remember customers driving in and seeing the tanker waving and saying that they would back the next day. One of my favorite jobs was driving the wrecker to the local parts store. They had a row of parts catalogs on the counter probably close to six feet long that they would look up part numbers in. Seemed as though they always had what was needed. I liked going there because the owner had a drag car a 37 Chevy Coupe Gasser and we would talk about the car and racing. I also bought a lot of S&K tools from him a most of them I still have and use.

In reply to 914Driver :

As I said earlier little did he know that when he hired me I wasn’t content to just pump gas.  Once I had a cleaning rag in my hand he’d opened the floodgates.   

I was supposed to stay busy pumping gas and cleaning the office.  I was not allowed to be in the shop.  

Ha!  

He couldn’t object if I cleaned and polished the engine analyzer.  And that was in the shop!  

So every free moment I was dusting and polishing that including cleaning the face of all the gauges and  the Oscilloscope with glass cleaner.   Right next to it was the distributor machine which also had a few gauges.  Not to mention it’s own cabinet to polish up.  

With the excuse of cleaning I started spending more and more time in the shop. It wasn’t too long before the,  “here,  hold this will you”? and get me a set of points for this Hudson. ( (which of course we kept in the storage over the office).  

By being helpful to the mechanics ( including the boss) questions asked were given answers and explained  or even demonstrated  which was akin to pulling the blankets over the dog in the bed with a cold nose.  

Grinding valves came first  so the seats and guides could be dealt with.  A job that listed for 2& 1/2 hours taking less than 1/2 that time meant my cold nose would be sniffing around the boring bar next. And then the brake drum machine.  I guess I didn’t inhale too much asbestos from the brake shoe refinishing equipment.  ‘Cause I’m still here. 

We had two types of mechanics.  The professional do it by the book ( my Boss). And Steve, the hot rodder who taught me a lot of what I know.   Steve refused to wear the hat so naturally so did I.  I mean he was the real expert.  He had a 1927 Ford Roadster channeled over the frame rails.  53 merc with 4 Strombergs in a row.  Edelbrock heads and a Halibrand  quick change.  

He taught me how to pour a set of bearings and how to squeeze one more tuneup out of a set of points.   Why high compression was good and  why a dropped front axle was so important.  

My Boss went home for diner at 5:00 and from then until 9:00 mom day through Friday Steve taught or showed me stuff that even the magazines of the day didn’t talk about.  The real trick to balancing carburetors. Why you want loose springs on your generator.   How to port the exhaust on a 1953 Merc. You know, important stuff.  

Great write up French.  My grandfather owned a full service Texaco station for 30 some odd years before retiring in 1980.  Back then the service station did everything for your car from gas to complete overhauls to tires.  I still have a tire mounting machine and bubble balancer from when he retired.  

I had a high school english teacher that I didn't get along with very well. Once, she told me in front of the whole class that I would be lucky if I could get a job pumping gas after high school. This was in 1986/7 and by then full service was just about extinct in that area. 

T.J. said:

I had a high school english teacher that I didn't get along with very well. Once, she told me in front of the whole class that I would be lucky if I could get a job pumping gas after high school. This was in 1986/7 and by then full service was just about extinct in that area. 

You should have complimented him for recognizing that you had such a rare skill set.  Followed up by “I’ll bet that’s what they said about Ford, The Wright Brothers, and Bill Gates”.

Went to a Standard Oil training school in place of the owner. While there was told you should always start cleaning windshield on front drivers side then to rear drivers side then back to front passenger side. That way you could open hood as you come around to check oil have a look at belts, ask driver if he wanted air filter checked, fill wiper cleaner, etc. We never short sticked anyone or sold them something that was not needed but it was good business to get under the hood. You could remind them the oil looked dirty when was last time oil was changed. Oil was changed every two thousand miles then and grease jobs every thousand miles. Cars used a lot more oil back then. A car with 50 or 60 thousand miles was consider high mileage and would probably need a quart or more between oil changes. Also you were lucky to get twenty or thirty thousand miles from a set of tires. When people tell me now “ they don’t make them like they used to” I say thank god.  In the north with snow and salt they were rusting out before they were even paid for.

pirate said:

Went to a Standard Oil training school in place of the owner. While there was told you should always start cleaning windshield on front drivers side then to rear drivers side then back to front passenger side. That way you could open hood as you come around to check oil have a look at belts, ask driver if he wanted air filter checked, fill wiper cleaner, etc. We never short sticked anyone or sold them something that was not needed but it was good business to get under the hood. You could remind them the oil looked dirty when was last time oil was changed. Oil was changed every two thousand miles then and grease jobs every thousand miles. Cars used a lot more oil back then. A car with 50 or 60 thousand miles was consider high mileage and would probably need a quart or more between oil changes. Also you were lucky to get twenty or thirty thousand miles from a set of tires. When people tell me now “ they don’t make them like they used to” I say thank god.  In the north with snow and salt they were rusting out before they were even paid for.

My Boss had a different approach. First stick the fuel nozzle in ( don’t start pumping if it’s less than a fill) that commits the driver to waiting for you to do all your checks. 

People wanted windshields clean. In the summer to remove dead bugs, on the winter to remove salt.  

I pumped gas at my aunt and uncle's country store in Georgia when I was in my early teens.  Two manual pumps with no shut off.  You had to wind the handle to reset it for each sale.  Every now and then I would have to check the oil.  I was discouraged from doing the "blue dot" treatment.          

I'm a little young for this exact conversation, but Feel I have something to add/share. 

   I feel quite fortunate to be among the last to work in a full service porcelain gas station. It was owned by, and named after an ornery old man Sam Shull. This was confusing, because it seemed like it should have been a Shell. Maybe it even had a shell symbol somewhere, but it was absolutely "Sam Shull". His son Ronnie, who was a bit touched, ran the pumps. Then there was the mechanic, Barry. Half Bob Seger, half Smokey Yunik, Barry was a friend of my Dad's. 

   In rural Tennessee, outsiders gravitated to one another. My Marylander Dad, and Michigander Barry were fast friends in the early 70's. To complete the blasphemy, they both were into VWs, had long hair, as well as beards and/or moustaches. Not well accepted in the area. 

   Dad died in the early 80's, and I graduated in '89. Barry probably felt some responsibility to teach both my older brother, and I something. So summers between college in the early 90s, I worked in a full service gas station, too naive, and sheltered to realize this business was soon to go the way of the liquid lizards Ronnie pumped into those folk's tanks. 

   Barry taught me a lot. A lot about cars, and a lot about life. His mantra of "If you can't do it right, ...Do it Wrong" is repeated nearly daily in my polluted gray matter. "Leave well enough alone" is another of his gems. His laments of "Ronnie is SO stupid!" are echoed when I have to deal with people I I feel could maybe do a bit better. He paid me somewhere around $100 a week, which was great money back then, but in retrospect, I feel I should have been paying him for the real world education he offered. Frankly, as a college dropout, he taught me much more than any professor. 

   The great thing about The Station was the cast of characters that were constantly cycling through. The Jr. High Ag teacher was a regular- son in law of Sam, as I remember. Across the street, was a Hardees, and we would marvel at how they would serve a seemingly endless line in the mornings. Biscuits were king. A lawyer's wife would get her dog a burger every day. I kid you not, but Haskell was my favorite. He lived maybe a half a mile away, and walked by to see us daily, it seems.

   A scientist on the Manhattan Project, "The Assassin", as people would call him behind his back, was a nice old fella. Like some sort of sit com character, He'd enter the shop daily, and declare, "Boys, I'm the most miserable man in Warren County", and one, or all of us would dutifully reply, " Why's that?" He would respond with admonitions of what a horrible, brow beating, unreasonable wench he had married all those years ago, and how she seemed to only delight in hanging on one more day to torment him, weather financially, or with some more clever and devious degradation, the only solace from which, he was currently experiencing.

   The funny thing is, he loved her. We all knew it, and so did he. After he died, I got a shoebox full of his old glasses. I had my prescription lenses fitted in them for years. 

   Largely, we worked on imports at The Station. We'd fix anything, and I later learned that Barry's billing was largely on a sliding scale. If someone was in need, they were charged what they could afford. 

   Integrity. That is my take away. Barry went through Viet Nam as a very young man, and no doubt, had demons to battle, but he chose to live simply, help when he could, and laugh quite a bit. He's still with us. I need to drop by his shop.

wheelsmithy said:

I'm a little young for this exact conversation, but Feel I have something to add/share. 

   I feel quite fortunate to be among the last to work in a full service porcelain gas station. It was owned by, and named after an ornery old man Sam Shull. This was confusing, because it seemed like it should have been a Shell. Maybe it even had a shell symbol somewhere, but it was absolutely "Sam Shull". His son Ronnie, who was a bit touched, ran the pumps. Then there was the mechanic, Barry. Half Bob Seger, half Smokey Yunik, Barry was a friend of my Dad's. 

   In rural Tennessee, outsiders gravitated to one another. My Marylander Dad, and Michigander Barry were fast friends in the early 70's. To complete the blasphemy, they both were into VWs, had long hair, as well as beards and/or moustaches. Not well accepted in the area. 

   Dad died in the early 80's, and I graduated in '89. Barry probably felt some responsibility to teach both my older brother, and I something. So summers between college in the early 90s, I worked in a full service gas station, too naive, and sheltered to realize this business was soon to go the way of the liquid lizards Ronnie pumped into those folk's tanks. 

   Barry taught me a lot. A lot about cars, and a lot about life. His mantra of "If you can't do it right, ...Do it Wrong" is repeated nearly daily in my polluted gray matter. "Leave well enough alone" is another of his gems. His laments of "Ronnie is SO stupid!" are echoed when I have to deal with people I I feel could maybe do a bit better. He paid me somewhere around $100 a week, which was great money back then, but in retrospect, I feel I should have been paying him for the real world education he offered. Frankly, as a college dropout, he taught mu much more than any professor. 

   The great thing about The Station was the cast of characters that were constantly cycling through. The Jr. High Ag teacher was a regular- son in law of Sam, as I remember. Across the street, was a Hardees, and we would marvel at how they would serve a seemingly endless line in the mornings. Biscuits were king. A lawyer's wife would get her dog a burger every day. I kid you not, but Haskell was my favorite. He lived maybe a half a mile away, and walked by to see us daily, it seems.

   A scientist on the Manhattan Project, "The Assassin", as people would call him behind his back, was a nice old fella. Like some sort of sit com character, He'd enter the shop daily, and declare, "Boys, I'm the most miserable man in Warren County", and one, or all of us would dutifully reply, " Why's that?" He would respond with admonitions of what a horrible, brow beating, unreasonable wench he had married all those years ago, and how she seemed to only delight in hanging on one more day to torment him, weather financially, or with some more clever and devious degradation, the only solace from which, he was currently experiencing.

   The funny thing is, he loved her. We all knew it, and so did he. After he died, I got a shoebox full of his old glasses. I had my prescription lenses fitted in them for years. 

   Largely, we worked on imports at The Station. We'd fix anything, and I later learned that Barry's billing was largely on a sliding scale. If someone was in need, they were charged what they could afford. 

   Integrity. That is my take away. Barry went through Viet Nam as a very young man, and no doubt, had demons to battle, but he chose to live simply, help when he could, and laugh quite a bit. He's still with us. I need to drop by his shop.

I hope this is not perceived ads a thread jack. 

   

Thank you for writing that.  Those are the sort of stories that making reading so rewarding.  Please delete that last sentence. It’s too well written to deserve that.  

spitfirebill said:

I pumped gas at my aunt and uncle's country store in Georgia when I was in my early teens.  Two manual pumps with no shut off.  You had to wind the handle to reset it for each sale.  Every now and then I would have to check the oil.  I was discouraged from doing the "blue dot" treatment.          

I’ve never had the privilege of operating a hand pump. How unique. 

racerdave600 said:

Great write up French.  My grandfather owned a full service Texaco station for 30 some odd years before retiring in 1980.  Back then the service station did everything for your car from gas to complete overhauls to tires.  I still have a tire mounting machine and bubble balancer from when he retired.  

I started just as the first tubeless tires came into use.   Instead of patching the tires we  put a tube in every tire with a leak.  Sorry, learning curve but that was the normal way to deal with a leaking tubeless tire back then. 

We still had Model A Ford’s coming in,  they were only 30 year old cars. Old Model T’s were parked out behind or in barns.  So a hot rodder would buy a $15  Model A or $20  1932 Ford a Flathead engine could be rebuilt for $80 back then and $100 bought you everything required to turn it into something special.  

What I like about this thread (thank you Frenchy), is that we all remember this! The fifties and sixties were great times ... never to be seen again. We were so fortunate.

Am I the only one who thinks of  The song every time this thread title comes up?

wheelsmithy said:

I'm a little young for this exact conversation, but Feel I have something to add/share. 

   I feel quite fortunate to be among the last to work in a full service porcelain gas station. It was owned by, and named after an ornery old man Sam Shull. This was confusing, because it seemed like it should have been a Shell. Maybe it even had a shell symbol somewhere, but it was absolutely "Sam Shull". His son Ronnie, who was a bit touched, ran the pumps. Then there was the mechanic, Barry. Half Bob Seger, half Smokey Yunik, Barry was a friend of my Dad's. 

   In rural Tennessee, outsiders gravitated to one another. My Marylander Dad, and Michigander Barry were fast friends in the early 70's. To complete the blasphemy, they both were into VWs, had long hair, as well as beards and/or moustaches. Not well accepted in the area. 

   Dad died in the early 80's, and I graduated in '89. Barry probably felt some responsibility to teach both my older brother, and I something. So summers between college in the early 90s, I worked in a full service gas station, too naive, and sheltered to realize this business was soon to go the way of the liquid lizards Ronnie pumped into those folk's tanks. 

   Barry taught me a lot. A lot about cars, and a lot about life. His mantra of "If you can't do it right, ...Do it Wrong" is repeated nearly daily in my polluted gray matter. "Leave well enough alone" is another of his gems. His laments of "Ronnie is SO stupid!" are echoed when I have to deal with people I I feel could maybe do a bit better. He paid me somewhere around $100 a week, which was great money back then, but in retrospect, I feel I should have been paying him for the real world education he offered. Frankly, as a college dropout, he taught me much more than any professor. 

   The great thing about The Station was the cast of characters that were constantly cycling through. The Jr. High Ag teacher was a regular- son in law of Sam, as I remember. Across the street, was a Hardees, and we would marvel at how they would serve a seemingly endless line in the mornings. Biscuits were king. A lawyer's wife would get her dog a burger every day. I kid you not, but Haskell was my favorite. He lived maybe a half a mile away, and walked by to see us daily, it seems.

   A scientist on the Manhattan Project, "The Assassin", as people would call him behind his back, was a nice old fella. Like some sort of sit com character, He'd enter the shop daily, and declare, "Boys, I'm the most miserable man in Warren County", and one, or all of us would dutifully reply, " Why's that?" He would respond with admonitions of what a horrible, brow beating, unreasonable wench he had married all those years ago, and how she seemed to only delight in hanging on one more day to torment him, weather financially, or with some more clever and devious degradation, the only solace from which, he was currently experiencing.

   The funny thing is, he loved her. We all knew it, and so did he. After he died, I got a shoebox full of his old glasses. I had my prescription lenses fitted in them for years. 

   Largely, we worked on imports at The Station. We'd fix anything, and I later learned that Barry's billing was largely on a sliding scale. If someone was in need, they were charged what they could afford. 

   Integrity. That is my take away. Barry went through Viet Nam as a very young man, and no doubt, had demons to battle, but he chose to live simply, help when he could, and laugh quite a bit. He's still with us. I need to drop by his shop.

   

I really enjoy hearing about others doing the sort of thing I loved.  Even back then I could appreciate how fun and unique it was to mess around cars.  

Things to learn, times to share, if your home life wasn’t Ozzie and Harriet so what you were doing stuff around cars and that made up for a lot.  

When I came back with my demons from Vietnam I had cars to distract me.   Get over the shakes and fear.  Look forward to the excitement again.  

Darn if some car guys weren’t the most decent, kind, honest, people in the world. So eager to share their skills and knowledge and yet keep us from screwing up.  Yet covered it all up with a gruff, dower,  facade.  

Things were different back then. When regular customers pulled up to the pumps they would often get out of the car and go inside to talk to the owner while us “pump jockeys” would fill car, check oil, clean windshield, sometimes check air in tires plus anything else the car owner wanted. When finished we would run to the door tell the owner how much gas was pumped, oil, etc. before running to catch the next customer. Some of the regulars would occasionally slip me a tip but most tips came from work in the service bays. When doing oil changes and grease jobs I used to carefully wipe the excess grease from suspension joints and make sure there were no oil drips on oil pan or valve covers to drip on the car owners driveway they seemed to like that and sometimes slip me a tip when they were leaving.

I think all gas stations back then had their own cast of characters from those that were never happy to those that were really funny or a bit weird. You just got to know them better because they came in on a regular basis or schedule.  Probably not all that funny but we had a regular who owned a mattress company. When he came in I used to say “ Hey Bob how’s the mattress business” he would always say “ oh up and down”. Not that funny but it amused me as a young teenager. 

Seems most of the regular customers were men who came in Friday or Saturday to fill the car for the weekend or next weeks work. Whenever a young or pretty women drove up to the pumps there was a race to the pumps by the older guys including the owner who rarely came out from behind the counter and cash register. There was this one who wore her skirts a little to short , tops a bit to low cut but that’s a whole different story.

All of these posts paint a great picture. I can almost smell the gas and window cleaner mix. Remember the hose that rang the bell when you pulled up to the pumps?

There is a book in here somewhere if Frenchy wants to write it.

My dad had a service station in the late 70s, no gas.  The Tune-up Technician.  

I would come for my summer visit and hang out with him all day.  We commuted from Boston, MA to Portsmouth, NH every day.  I'd sweep up and do little things.  I was only about 7 or 8 years old.

Tons of down time for me being so young.  One of the mechanics there was older and treated me like his grandkid.  He was nice enough to send me out back of the shop and would keep an eye on me as I ripped apart old engines and transmissions.  They were junk and it gave me something to do.  I'd bring various bits inside and ask him what they were.  He would explain what it was and what it did.  I took apart my first SBC at that age and have been a car guy ever since.

Later, my dad had a satellite shop that also did auto body, I was in my teens.  They specialized in air cooled stuff, VWs, Porsches, Corvairs, and one 2CV.  I helped sand a 356 Speedster and a couple other 356s, been a VW/Porsche guy ever since.

pirate said:

Things were different back then. When regular customers pulled up to the pumps they would often get out of the car and go inside to talk to the owner while us “pump jockeys” would fill car, check oil, clean windshield, sometimes check air in tires plus anything else the car owner wanted. When finished we would run to the door tell the owner how much gas was pumped, oil, etc. before running to catch the next customer. Some of the regulars would occasionally slip me a tip but most tips came from work in the service bays. When doing oil changes and grease jobs I used to carefully wipe the excess grease from suspension joints and make sure there were no oil drips on oil pan or valve covers to drip on the car owners driveway they seemed to like that and sometimes slip me a tip when they were leaving.

I think all gas stations back then had their own cast of characters from those that were never happy to those that were really funny or a bit weird. You just got to know them better because they came in on a regular basis or schedule.  Probably not all that funny but we had a regular who owned a mattress company. When he came in I used to say “ Hey Bob how’s the mattress business” he would always say “ oh up and down”. Not that funny but it amused me as a young teenager. 

Seems most of the regular customers were men who came in Friday or Saturday to fill the car for the weekend or next weeks work. Whenever a young or pretty women drove up to the pumps there was a race to the pumps by the older guys including the owner who rarely came out from behind the counter and cash register. There was this one who wore her skirts a little to short , tops a bit to low cut but that’s a whole different story.

 

Please keep these coming. I’m sure many others like these as much as I do. Thank you 

preach said:

My dad had a service station in the late 70s, no gas.  The Tune-up Technician.  

I would come for my summer visit and hang out with him all day.  We commuted from Boston, MA to Portsmouth, NH every day.  I'd sweep up and do little things.  I was only about 7 or 8 years old.

Tons of down time for me being so young.  One of the mechanics there was older and treated me like his grandkid.  He was nice enough to send me out back of the shop and would keep an eye on me as I ripped apart old engines and transmissions.  They were junk and it gave me something to do.  I'd bring various bits inside and ask him what they were.  He would explain what it was and what it did.  I took apart my first SBC at that age and have been a car guy ever since.

Later, my dad had a satellite shop that also did auto body, I was in my teens.  They specialized in air cooled stuff, VWs, Porsches, Corvairs, and one 2CV.  I helped sand a 356 Speedster and a couple other 356s, been a VW/Porsche guy ever since.

That's my Story too!  I’ll bet it’s pretty common. Some older guy taking a young kid under his wing and teaching him car stuff.  

It’s a form of sharing that I believe is a lot less common today than in those days.   Today to learn about cars you need to sign up for the formal training you have to pay for.  

NermalSnert said:

All of these posts paint a great picture. I can almost smell the gas and window cleaner mix. Remember the hose that rang the bell when you pulled up to the pumps?

Yeh  I remember well those bells. As kids we rode across it on our bicycles causing it to ring and a mechanic to stop working, look up, and yell at us.  Great fun wasn’t it? Then when kids did it to meI guess I got my payback.   

frenchyd said:

It’s a form of sharing that I believe is a lot less common today than in those days.   Today to learn about cars you need to sign up for the formal training you have to pay for.  

I call it Tribal Knowledge.  Best kind.

Well I am from the Detroit area and it was a whole car culture. If you father didn’t work for one of the big three chances are he worked for a company that supplied the auto companies or was somehow involved with them. When the new models started hitting the showrooms in September whole families went to the dealer showrooms not really to buy a car but but just to see the new models and all they had to offer. If a neighbor bought a new car all the neighborhood went to see it and the owner was proud to show it off. 

If you were a kid at least in my neighborhood you could identify any car make, model and year as it drove down the street. All the guys I knew were interested in cars and couldn’t hardly wait until they got their license. Having a car represented a freedom and coming of age. I can only remember a very few kids I knew who actually had a car given to them by there parents. Most teens in my area worked and working was the avenue to be able to get a car. Being willing and able to work on a car meant having a nicer car then you could afford to buy.

Kids were a lot more interested in cars back then for me hot rods and racing. I also hung around with some guys that were a few years older then I was and they were getting and working on cars and it was a lot of what we talked about. I suppose there are other reasons no computers, no computer games, television that got maybe four stations, limited sports and certainly not sports that are year round like to day. Simpler time!

In reply to pirate : my dad bought a new car every other year. Slowly working his way up the GM line.  

By 1959 he’d arrived at a New  Cadillac El Dorado Convertible. White with the red interior.  It had every option including the air ride suspension. Wonderbar radio  and a  gas fired interior preheater. 

I still remember the Trip to California in those pre freeway days. Much of the time the top stayed up but once we were in San Francisco the top went down and stayed down until we left California.