Old gas stations

[Fading Fast]

And my mother at that age was a ringer for me at the same. It's often hard to tell us apart when comparing old photos.

Then the "Lizzie" maternal lineage hair seems to start off straight in childhood and curl into adulthood. Or do all the adult "Lizzies" get "permanent waves?"

 

[LizzieMaine]

My grandmother used to have a lady come to the house every couple of months to give her a permanent, in the days when hairdressers made house calls, and I myself am a devotee of the "home perm." But in the natural state we all had dead-straight hair. That forehead on my mother comes from my grandfather's side of the line, his extended all the way to the back of his head.

 

[tonyb]

 

[tonyb]

 

[tonyb]

 

[DeaconKC]

 

[DeaconKC]

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^^
I’m guessing that building was new when the photo was taken. (Provided it isn’t so “AI’ed” as to be a work of fiction.) And two uniformed attendants!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Those "ranch style" Shell stations were everywhere in the 70s, and you can still instantly recognize them no matter if they've been turned into a pizza joint, a pet-clipping shop, or a cell phone dealer.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^^
It’s a handsome structure.

My brother worked in one of those “modern” Shell stations 50 or more years ago. He escaped an attempted robbery at gunpoint there as he was closing for the night. He had a bay door open while he was warming up his Vespa scooter when the gunman appeared and directed him to the back room, where he presumed the money was. My brother instead jumped on his scooter and got TF outta there.

A friend owns a property that started life as a gas station, 60-some years ago, I’m guessing. There’s no point in disguising that it was once a gas station, I advised him. Attempting that would come at a great expense and likely wouldn’t result in better looking building.

His tenants have operated a “dispensary” there for several years now. There are divided windows where the bay doors were and the fixed awning remains over the existing people doorway and wraps around the corner of the building to where the rest rooms used to be. It looks good. Indeed, the best looking converted gas stations I’ve seen made no attempt to disguise their beginnings.

 

[tonyb]