Oil, Oil, Oil

The American Spectator ^ | 11 January 2006 | Ben Stein

[unionblue83]

To begin at somewhere near the end, I am at a gas station in the small town of Calimesa in the high desert between Beverly Hills and Rancho Mirage. It's late at night, maybe 10 p.m., and it's cold. My wife and I are getting gasoline to put in our old Caddy and complete the drive home to make sure our son goes to school tomorrow.

As I pay the kindly attendant, George, a man who actually greets me, checks the oil, and pats our dogs, my head is spinning and it's spitting out thoughts like a mad laser printer. Here they are, as I remember them:

[son of caesar]

you will find that outside of large democratic metropolises, people are actually human. now note the connection between the large metropolises that are overwhelmingly liberal and you will begin to see liberals for exactly what they are. complete and utter hypocrites playing with real peoples lives. btw, the high desert is truly beautiful, i know the east coasters laugh at us for not having forests, but americas desert is just one special place.

[garyhope]

Ben Stein's name should have been in larger type here.

He's always worth reading. One Ben Stein is worth a thousand useless Barbara Boxer's

[jwpjr]

When I was a kid in the mid-1950's my dad ran a gas station in a very small Florida town. The highway that ran through town, in front of dad's Gulf station, was US 441, a major north-south road of the day. This was pre-Interstate and Florida Turnpike. Gas was twenty cents a gallon, sometimes less during "gas wars" which broke out several times a year. All service was full service, there were simply no self-serve stations in town. Tires were a weak spot of automobile, these being the days before tubeless tires. Any stop for fuel included having the car inspected by a station employee. I was allowed to do some of it, but the task was too important to leave to a pre-teen kid so my dad followed behind me checking my work. The hood was opened and the oil was checked, the radiator was checked for coolant and the fan belts were inspected by running a finger along edges to look for fraying or missing rubber. One of the fan belt companies had a motorist who went from station to station with a bad belt. If the station person found the bad belt they won $5, five brand new silver dollars. My dad was the recipient once and we had his cardboard folder with its five silver dollars in it around for years and years. The company with the belt incentive program was Gates as I recall.

It was not uncommon for the customer who filled up with eight gallons or more to be given a drinking glass or some other gift. Customers delighted in collecting the whole set.

Automobiles needed lubrication on a much for frequent basis and it cost about $2 to have a lube and oil change.

Preparing a flat tire required taking the tire apart and patching the tube.

Lots of tires were retreads. Tires that had been worn out and then had the tread replaced. As I recall the cost of a retread was somewhere in the $4 range, a new tire about three times as much.

Condoms were kept behind the counter and the man had to ask for them.

In the case of dad's station there were separate rest rooms and drinking fountains for the races.

Dad's specialty was Simonizing a car. He started by using a rubbing compound to remove the oxidized paint, then hand-applied a coat of Simonize with particular care being taken to get EVERY speck of dried polish out of the various nooks and crannies of the car.

Yup, that's how it was. I know it's boring for a lot of you, but my grandson delights in hearing how it was when I was his age.