Another but milder one about the station next door.... The drive was paved but the street on one side was chip and oil and the lot on the other side was all gravel so the drive would get gravel all over it and the kids working nights had to sweep it off before their shift ended. There were two friends that worked alternate nights and one guy would cruise by on his night off towards the end of the shift until he saw the other one had just finished sweeping then he'd slowly cruise through the drive giving the kid on duty the bird, stop in the gravel on the other side and then floor it throwing gravel all over the freshly swept pavement. The one kid finally got smart and conned the younger kids that hung out there into sweeping it for a can of pop or a candy bar.
A couple more - slow afternoon here.... Back to the Sunnoco owned by "Bozo", 'cuz that was the place with the best stories. One hot afternoon a guy pulls in and gets a fill up. Bad attitude, cusses out the boss. The boss flips him off and the guy pulls out with the hose still attached spraying gas. Hooks the back bumper and pulls the nozzle off of the line. Now we have a wiggling snake on the ground spraying gas on everything and of course it catches on fire. Bozo is running around screaming like a little girl and certain that he is gonna die. Fred the hippie is watching this circus through the front window. He calmly walks into the back and pulls the main breaker, grabs the same 10 gallon bucket of Blue Flash floor cleaner we'd used before and carries it out, dumping it on the burning gas & son of a gun if it don't work. Fred just walks back into the front sits down, and lights up a smoke - I don't think he said a single word the whole time.... We had an F350 tow truck with a Holmes 440 boom and a 4 bbl 390. It had the obligatory dual wheels and a four speed with a granny low. Lots of stuff in the back - starting generator, a big fireplace grate to use as a wheel chock for winching in the winter, and tools. I found out that, if you really wound her up & side stepped the clutch it would pick up the driver's front tire. Made for great entertainment. One day the new kid (at 16 I was already a veteran - pump guys did not last long) pulls the truck around a corner and we watch as the passenger side axle and tire assembly just kinda drift out of the wheel well but about a foot... not supposed to happen with a floater. Lots of broken parts - of course nobody knew what could break an axle like that... One of the pump guys had an old Cadillac that looked good but used a lot of oil. Every night he'd come by right before closing and we'd pump a quart or two of 90W gear oil into the engine from the overhead hose rig. He drove it that way for a long time. Fred the hippie was cool in a pinch - but honesty was never a problem. He had a habit of punching oil cans from the bottom when adding a quart in teh bays. Then he'd take that empty can, put it in the display rack on the island, and punch it from the top to "top off" a car or two every night.
It was the early 70's. My dad owned a Texaco Station. Dad was also a drag racer at that time. He had a 1957 Chevy P/U with a wicked 396BB. He would work on this truck at the station during business hours which was not uncommon. He was trying to get it ready for the upcoming weekends races. The funny part is, between customers he would back it out to the side of the lot and do burnouts across the lot and right thru the pump island. Needless the say the whole corner block was covered in smoke. There was a Union 76 station right next door, it too would be completely fogged up with burning tire smoke. No one ever complained and dad was very successful in the service station business. He went on to buy another Texaco and a Gulf. We still sit around and laugh about those days. He cannot believe he did stuff like that, LOL. Nothing like youth, i would give almost anything to go back to then. Those were the best days of my life.
Probably not at all what your looking for,.... But here's my ol' Station,..... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=389828&highlight=1937+mobil
Oh question for any of you that worked full service pumping gas. How many times did you have people pull up to the pump, with the gas door on the other side, and tell them, "Fills on the other side." and they just start the car, and circle around to the other side of the pump? Personally I lost count.
First real job in high school Shell station gas attendant and repair. There was a gorgeous Nurse that would stop to get gas every week with her dress up enough to see her brains. She had the cleanest windshield in town. It was a race to beat the boss out of the office to pump her gas. She loved every moment of this attention.
Back in the early 70s I worked in a Texaco station on RT 66 in New Mexico, like every station I worked at in those days the first thing they showed you when you went to work was the peephole from the storeroom into the ladies bathroom, a buddy was hanging around keeping me company one night when a couple came in, the chick was hot and headed for the bathroom and I seen my buddy go into the storeroom, I was almost thru servicing his car when she came back and started talking to her boyfriend, I went into the office and my bud was in there with a red, watering eye, they walked into the office and the lady said thats him, the guy I caught looking and stuck my finger in his eye, my friend took off running down the street with the guy chasing him. He never did catch him but they told the Texaco about the peephole and had to cover it up. Spike
About 1991, a friend was working at a gas station in a town called Randolph, NY...about 70 miles south of Buffalo and 8 hours east of New Jersey on what was then Rt 17 (now I-86) that runs across the southern part of NY from east to west... An elderly couple pulled in and my friend started pumping their gas. The male half is looking at a map and finally asks my friend for directions. Guy - "How do I get to the Garden State Parkway" Friend - "You probably need to go to the Garden State (New Jersey)" Wife - "*&%$&$^(*&^(*&^$%" Seems the couple left from NYC and somehow got REAL lost...and 8 hours away from where they were heading...
I was working at a full service station in 1965. A guy came in with a new Corvette and procedes to string up an extension cord to a bench grinder which he uses like a prehistoric Dremal tool to cut the rear fenders out of this Vette so he can put a set of slicks on to go racing that night. He saw us lookiing horrified and explained that he would have the fenders reglassed and finished out the following week.
do any of you guys remember this??? i remember when they interviewed they gas station attendant he was just stupid, wouldnt say a word. like it scared me when i saw the plane almost crash into the fuel pumps! the station is no longer there! www.airdisaster.com/eyewitness/wn1455.shtml
Working at the service station was a constant life lesson in 1965. Found a young guy sitting on the bench in front one day crying like a baby. He had come to Dallas from Oklahoma to sell some cattle or something and decided to stop at the "tittie joint" next door for a little big city sin. I guess he flashed the money because the "girls" slipped him a mickey and robbed him of something like 5 grand cash. He was crying about how he was going to explain what happened to his Mom and Dad.
There were peepholes in the can? Why didn't they tell me that? I'd still be working there. The station i worked at in the late 70's was always busy, we always had at least three guys pumping gas. Goober was one of them, i forget his real name. He was a brainless as Miss Teen South Carolina and howhere's near as good to look at. Poor bastard was in his twenties and didn't have a drivers license yet. Anyways, oil seemed to be his big failing in life. He often had troubles finding the dipstick (looking under the front hood of Volkswagens didn't help either) And even more trouble finding a spot to put the oil. Windshield washer, master cylinder, power steering pump, anywhere there was a cap was fair game. Best one i recall was a chick in a 69 Cougar. Goober checks the oil and next i see him reading the owners manual with the woman. After a while he comes into the booth where i am and grabs five quarts. He added four before i got a break to investigate. I asked him to check again and he pushes the dipstick in and pulls it up with oil several inches past the full mark. Seems he never pushed the dipstick in to seating and when he check it showed nothing. Owners manual says it takes five... I had another customer before i could advise him on the drain plug location. Car started and ran but sounded odd!
Here is a good collection of Pump Jockey tales to add to the pile http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=322668&highlight=pump+jockey
My older brother moonlighted at another gas station in the mid 60's. One day a guy comes in with a nice 59 Chevy convertible and offers it for sale because it has "a rod knocking". My brother gave him $150 dollars for it What it had was a worn rocker arm that was letting a push rod hit the valve cover. A rocker and push rod from the scrap pile had the Chevy running like a top. I bought it a year or so later and put an Earl Shieb paint job on it. It was a great car.
One thing that was entertaining in the spring for me at that small town service station, is there was a intersection at the highway. In a lame attempt to cut down at accidents at that intersection (the speed limit reduces to 45 but most people wouldn't or weren't paying attention) they installed a flashing yellow light that hung from a wire strung across the highway. Well farming is big business and big equipment around there. I would watch farm equipment clip that thing all day long, break the light, bring down the wire, hell one time I saw it crack a whole light pole in half. The county boys would always come in asking me if I saw who hit it, of course I knew even if I wouldn't have seen it, but you think I'm going to rat on someone who I've not only grown up with, but are my customers? Stupid thing shouldn't have been there anyways, did no good, about a year ago now a local gal got creamed and killed by someone who didn't stop at the intersection.
I too could not count the millions of times that has happened to me and it used to really tick me off.
I picked up a 67 Impala 4-door for $50. Talking to the guy at the garage, he said motor was shot, or jumped time, made noise when you cranked it over. Someone had played with the distributor, left the nut off the hold down. Distributot was popping up and down while cranking it over. Easy fix, cheap car for me.......... Bought a Meyers Manx dune buggy, Corvair powered. Guy bought it and couldn't get it to run, said the motor was shot. He was using a 6 volt battery instead of a 12 volt, and the points were closed. He was really PO'd when I drove away in it after buying it, instead of towing it away. Got another Corvair, someone junked it because of a supposedly bad motor. Broken oil pressure switch, cost me less than $5 to fix it. A friend told me about it, it had just been dropped off at the junkyard, gave them $50 for the whole car. Seemed the Chevy dealer is the one who told the owner the motor was bad, and sold the guy a replacement for it. Owner was a doctor, who normally drove a Cadillac, but he needed a beater to take into the city to go to Bills football games downtown so nobody would mess with his Caddy.
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