Remember……

[t-man403]

Flipping your plate down to fill up? I sure do and I still have my 68’ SS Impala although it does need some help. A lot actually  . Always thought I’d re-restore it when I retired but I don’t see either happening any time soon unfortunately  . Cost too much to live.  On a better note, I do have a new rear tire on its way for the Valk. 
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[f6john]

I have two. A 67 Chevelle and a 95 Impala SS, both with behind the plate gas caps. The Chevelle had quite a few gallons of 25 cent gas run through it!

[csj]

I remember when girls used to look like that!

[carolinarider09]

Not sure when the picture was taken but, for three years, I worked summers at a Shell Service Station just up from Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach, SC.  The years, 1964-1966.   As a young man (teenager) just getting ready to go to college, there was no better job.   

And yes, we had the license plate cover ups and then there is the taillight that drops down (forget the make and model) but, after the first time you never have to ask again. 

And then there was the Renault Delphine which, if I remember correctly, the first time I had to fill one up I was not sure which of the caps in the "trunk" (rear engine car) was the fuel tank.

And, since I worked during the summers at the beach there were those "events" that captured a young mans eye and sometimes the heart. 

Remember it like it was yesterday.  Oh the stores...... for a young man.......

[POPS 57]

I have a 57 Chev. conv. and the tank fill is behind the tail fin. With gas going up and only getting ten miles per gal. It's going to big $$$$ to go on trips. 

[old2soon]

    I'm tryin to recall but thinkin the 57 Buick was behind a tail light. Both my 56 Chevys and my 69 Pontiac Caralina behing the license plate. Again tryin to recall but my 70 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme might have been behind the license plate too. I pumped gas right after I turned 16 and good lookin young gals with short skirts or short shorts left with REALLY CLEAN WINDSHIELDS!  I remember gittin bout 4 gallons of gasoline-leaded-and a pack of Luckies for a dollar! And Stamps and they pumped it! And they also washed of the glass!  Air wuz FREE and the right attendant would air the tires for you. Check under the hood to if you asked. ALWAYS had a pen or a pencil handy in case of a drive off. Happened once or twice and first call was to the LAW! RIDE SAFE.
 

[carolinarider09]

    I'm tryin to recall but thinkin the 57 Buick was behind a tail light. Both my 56 Chevys and my 69 Pontiac Caralina behing the license plate. Again tryin to recall but my 70 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme might have been behind the license plate too. I pumped gas right after I turned 16 and good lookin young gals with short skirts or short shorts left with REALLY CLEAN WINDSHIELDS!  I remember gittin bout 4 gallons of gasoline-leaded-and a pack of Luckies for a dollar! And Stamps and they pumped it! And they also washed of the glass!  Air wuz FREE and the right attendant would air the tires for you. Check under the hood to if you asked. ALWAYS had a pen or a pencil handy in case of a drive off. Happened once or twice and first call was to the LAW! RIDE SAFE.
 

Yes Sir!!!!   If there were two of us there and only the one car, we both might just wash part of the windshield, depending on the occupants. 

[Willow]

   ... after I turned 16 and good lookin young gals with short skirts or short shorts left with REALLY CLEAN WINDSHIELDS!  ...

My memory is related but different.  I remember in the seventies service stations using young ladies to wipe the windshields.  More often than not they would end up leaning across and pressed against the shield.  Those were the days when the opposition to wearing brassieres was at its height.   

[John Schmidt]

I remember when girls used to look like that!

Yeah...and men didn't try to. 

[old2soon]

   ... after I turned 16 and good lookin young gals with short skirts or short shorts left with REALLY CLEAN WINDSHIELDS!  ...

My memory is related but different.  I remember in the seventies service stations using young ladies to wipe the windshields.  More often than not they would end up leaning across and pressed against the shield.  Those were the days when the opposition to wearing brassieres was at its height.   

    Or whatever Girls High School team was washing cars for a fund raiser. Been to some M/C rallys where the Women washed the scoots in bikinis and depening on alcohol consumption monokinis or less!  Somethings I can't relate due to R O R here!  RIDE SAFE.

[h13man]

Not sure when the picture was taken but, for three years, I worked summers at a Shell Service Station just up from Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach, SC.  The years, 1964-1966.   As a young man (teenager) just getting ready to go to college, there was no better job.   

Remember it like it was yesterday.  Oh the stores...... for a young man.......

Thats a 73'/74" hatchback Nova and 73' when the gas doubled because of the oil embargo. Never been lower since. 

[Kep]

Wish I could do that when I cross the Ky /Indiana  I65 bridge so I could save the toll...haha

[Oss]

my 57 olds super 88 it was behind the left stop lens

ONCE i ran out of gas on a long uphill and the gas can was a beech to get into that filler

got close to 20 mpg if I wasnt flooring the throttle        loved the sound of the 371 4bbl with the dual exhaust

[h13man]

my 57 olds super 88 it was behind the left stop lens

ONCE i ran out of gas on a long uphill and the gas can was a beech to get into that filler

got close to 20 mpg if I wasnt flooring the throttle        loved the sound of the 371 4bbl with the dual exhaust

We were out and about listening to "oldie" station and this came on. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=260hXID0Yo0

[carolinarider09]

As I said, I worked the Chapin Shell Gas Station in Myrtle Beach, SC in the mid 60's. 

One night I was working the night shift with a gentleman who was also a fisherman (nets).   I forget his name might have been Dubbie. 

Anyway it was sometime in summer and as I said we were working nights.  We were standing there (smoking probably) and this car pulls in to the pumps.   The station was on the main drag and right on the way from Conway and other cities vis US 501 and then US 378 to Florence, Sumter and Columba.

Well when the car pulled in it smelled like it had been running long and hard.  There were two couples in the car, sitting close and side by side in the front and rear seats. 

As we started to fill the car with gas another car pulls in behind it and a lady jumps out and runs up to the car we were fueling up and starts talking loudly.   

Turns out she was the wife of the gentlemen in the back seat of the car who was with someone that was not his wife.

The conversation went on for a few minutes and then the first car pulled away.  Don't remember if the second car followed. 

But one has to look and remember, 1965-66, young man, brought up in a reasonably civil environment, having heard of  something like this but never ever saw it personally and all of a sudden, we are in the middle of it.

The gentlemen I was on shift with at nights was a country boy/guy.   He would look at the sky and say something like "it's going to fair off".  Which meant he could go out fishing.  You know, what a lot of people fail to realize is what you learn from this and people like Dubbie. 

Your life was shaped by schooling and church and neighbors and childhood friends when you were coming of age.  Then you were exposed to things that gave you a chance to understand why you were brought up as you were (at least on my case). 

I will tell you one more story from age 16 later.

[Bigwolf]

Yep!  I remember!  I was going to high school during the day and working service station at night in a college town.  After 6 pm I was the only attendant at the station and I closed it at 11:30 pm.

At that time, I was very naive about women and that was probably a good thing!  I didn’t realize when those college women were hitting on me.  Well, there was this one married woman that would ride up to the pump on her Honda motorcycle, make sure she had her legs spread wide so to hold the bike straight up and steady, then lean back and tell me to “fill ‘er up”!  I never responded to that!  I knew she was married.  She was beautiful though!  I can’t say that I was never tempted!  She was not the only bold one though.  There were a few others.

Those were some very interesting years!  Both in school and at work.  I was more of a gear head than a woman chaser though.

[Mooskee]

Elbert’s gas station had a potbellied stove in the middle of the floor. It was surrounded by
dilapidated old chairs. The chairs were filled with dilapidated old men. Every day they showed
up at opening time and sat around swapping lies all day. Sometimes they would start their story
with, “Back before the war…” My working partner and I always wondered which war. We joked
that with some of those rascals it might be the French and Indian war.

Gas sold for about 20 cents a gallon. The gas companies would run promotional events and give
you a prize if you bought at least 8 gallons. It might be a dinner plate, or a towel. They were
always thinking of something. You could fill your cupboard just by buying gas to get to work.

Apart from the war the old men spoke of, other wars would develop occasionally. Gas wars. The
other local station owner would cut his price by a penny, to get customers away from Elbert. In
response Elbert would cut his price by a penny. This went back and forth until one day Elbert got
in his truck and drove over to the other gas station and filled up. He told the other guy, “I can’t
buy the gas cheaper than this, so I’m filling up here.” That ended that gas war.

A few years later we were standing in line on odd and even days to buy 5 gallons of gas at a time
because it had “run out.” The fact is the tankers were off the coast and not allowed to dock. Of
course, it drove the price of gas up. Forty years later, I was paying $5.50 per gallon in California.
The gas still hasn’t run out

[Jess from VA]

My experiences working my first W2 withholding gas station job at age 15-17 for $1.25-.50 an hour:

It was a very busy station at a perfect location, and we had a dozen or more guys; young pump jockeys and some older 20s mechanics.  The level of bullsh!t stories, rough jokes, sex talk, practical jokes and every kind of foul language was over the top.  I had been raised in church and boy scouts and it was a real sensory overload.  Dad told me to keep my head down and mouth shut and to excel at hard work which was what I was (almost) being paid to do. 

And the owner boss was a mean old drunk who would fire you in a second and took no backtalk, and you were expected to work at all times.  If you had nothing to do, you found something to do, because what he found for you was always far worse than cleaning the restrooms.

And what women and girls occasionally did to the ladies restroom was beyond belief.

Mike the mechanic, the former Marine back from the 'Nam, was from Texas and talked funny, and told the most amazing stories and could make everyone laugh, and had a heart of gold. 

And Muskrat (called that because of his big nose), was another young pump jockey.  And the older guys would run down to Toledo where you could go to drink 3.2 beer in giant dance bars with live rock music.  And they told Muskrat they would take him with them and go to a whore house where he could lose his cherry.  He asked how it worked, and they told him she washed him off in the sink and got paid before sex.  And Musky thought about that a second then asked... well, how much is it if you don't make it past the sink? (and gales of laughter).  There ain't no discounts buddy.

We were close to industry with a Chrysler engine plant and Monsanto and chemical plants nearby and we got every kind of rusted out old beater jalopies and ghetto cruisers (I think this term originated in Detroit), but also the golf club crowd with spanking new Caddies, Lincolns, Imperials.  And it was the height of muscle cars and we got them all; Cudas, Roadrunners, Corvettes, Chevelles, Camaros, GTOs, and every kind of wanna bees like jacked up Ramblers with big rear tires and faulty exhaust. 

And mini skirts were in, and the boss made us give super service washing every window with 2 guys on a car.  And some showed you panties on purpose, and some didn't.  Mini skirt car windows were cleaned to spotless perfection. 

In July 1969, the night of the moon landing, the boss had the whole crew work all night unloading the entire 2 bay shop, floor to ceiling scrub and paint job, with a little black and white TV covering the landing.  And the boss put 8 cases of beer in the ice cooler, and we all got drunk as lords, staggering home after sunup.

In winters, working the night shift on frigid nights, we'd close up and 2 of us would run the station truck down to the Chrysler plant parking lot at shift change and get paid cash to jump start cars and fix flats or whatever, and pocket the money. 

My least favorite practical joke was to walk up to a shop bay and have one of the mechanics squirt you head to toe with the high pressure grease gun.

One freezing night the head mechanic brought his own new car in to work on and he just pulled the nose in and left the bay door open, letting all the precious warm air out for the whole night.  I asked him to please pull in so we could close the door, and he told me to buzz off.  I made as if to close the bay door on his hood (but didn't), and he walked over and sucker punched me hard right in the face, sending me sprawling on the floor.  Then stood over me telling me to get up.  I told him I was staying on the floor because he would just put me back there again.

After 20 months or so, I got fired for pulling hole shots on the bell ropes with the station truck, and busting the drive shaft and tearing up the exhaust.  Only job I ever got fired from.  My introduction to the real world.

[Ramie]

When I was in my early teens my father owned a small Chevy dealership / Standard service station.  If he was lucky he sold a new car every other month.  I learned how to clean floors and toilets there.  How to interact with people while I pumped their gas and cleaned their windows and the difference between detergent oil and non detergent oil.  That's where I learned mechanics and by the time I was 15 I was tearing apart and overhauling engines, replacing wheel bearings etc.  I was an amazing way and time to grow up in a small town.  My father was an extremely patient man and let me make mistakes along the way just so I would have the pleasure of fixing them and learning. 

I can't help but think our world is now a poorer place now for our young people whose only learning takes place in school or online.

[carolinarider09]

When I was in my early teens my father owned a small Chevy dealership / Standard service station.  If he was lucky he sold a new car every other month.  I learned how to clean floors and toilets there.  How to interact with people while I pumped their gas and cleaned their windows and the difference between detergent oil and non detergent oil.  That's where I learned mechanics and by the time I was 15 I was tearing apart and overhauling engines, replacing wheel bearings etc.  I was an amazing way and time to grow up in a small town.  My father was an extremely patient man and let me make mistakes along the way just so I would have the pleasure of fixing them and learning. 

I can't help but think our world is now a poorer place now for our young people whose only learning takes place in school or online.

What you summarize about is factual, and truth and what we should look back onto and say, how is it not like that now. 

I know, I did stuff with computers and I was an Amateur Radio Operator at age 16.  I built a 16" sailboat in our carport.  I got the chance to do lots of things, fly U-Control planes, just stuff you don't see any more.  No longer much hands on it seems and that is a pity.