Old gas stations

Right on Rob !


The illustrations were intentionally a la Crumb!

 

I used to have a T-shirt with that KOT design!

Ahh....memories.

Rob

 

VW busses are getting rare around here. We rented a VW Touran or very similar van when we were in the U.K. It was a six-speed manual with right-hand drive. The first hundred yards was tricky and I never really got used to having that many gears. We now have a VW "Sportwagen," a Golf variation. That was my wife's Christmas present after someone sideswiped our perfectly good 1998 Volvo.

 

I once drove my Volkswagen "Rabbit" edition vehicle cross-country to Calif.
At the half way point, my right leg
started cramping because of the gas pedal.

The gas pedal was a small pad that
did not touch the floorboard.
For everyday short term driving this
was fine.

But not for long distance.

So I taped a piece of flat wood to the
gas pedal long enough to touch the
floorboard.
This way I was able to rest my foot
on the floorboard and still press on
the make-shift gas pedal.

 

I’ve been aiming a camera at folks for over 30 years.
Models/actors will not show you an awkward smile like
the one from this lady who most likely was asked to
“pretend” to be having lunch, pouring nothing from an
empty thermos.

The camera will spot an amateur every time!

You can check the various photos from back then.
Like the smirk on the fellow who had the gas pump at a location
of the vehicle when he knew very well that the gas filler was
located somewhere else but was asked to “pose” for the camera.

 

I have no disagreement with anything you say as you are the professional, but the quote of mine you noted was referring to the two people in the office and not the woman above.

 

Rob

 

@ Rob...
This is Minute Service Station #1 under construction.



Minute Service Station #2 :


Almost similar to station #8 which you posted. Nice!

“cookie cutters” !

 

For some reason the roadster parked on the side street, at the extreme left, reminds me of the roadster driven by Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby. The whole pic makes me think of a college town -- something about the trees near the roadster and in the back, and the dorm-like apartment building behind the station.

 

Mid- to late Sixties, I'll warrant -- after the "Tiger in Your Tank" ad campaign became established, but before Humble Oil's various name brands like Esso and Enco morphed into Exxon.

 

Bringing Up Baby.
Favorite scenes is the station-wagon drive in the country
although not enough is shown of that nice woodie!


Later models with not much wood left.
Termites!

 

Best thing about gas stations when I was a “yute” !


Who am I kidding...
this was about it most of the time!

Grand times with jake !

 

Hazel Park, MI. The bottom picture was labeled 1944, so the top one was obviously earlier.

 

It was 1965, the first nationally televised Indianapolis 500. Bobby Johns drove Lotus #83 to 7th at Indianapolis. Jim Clark in Lotus #82 won, the first rear engine car to ever do so.

 

Humble left no doubt in your mind that ENCO gas was going into Jimmy's Lotus! Note the Tiger In Your Tank sign, and the tiger tail fuel line.

 

Kids today aren't spoiled because they don't live like this, but growing up, if we were "out" and thirsty we'd find a water fountain - a soda was a treat that I only got occasionally. To be even more fair to kids today, there were a ton of public water fountains back in the late-'60s/'70s when I was growing up, but today, I guess owing to the preference for bottled water and, maybe, sanitary reason, you don't see that many of them anymore. I can hear my father saying "water's good enough for you," when I'd ask for a soda - after awhile, I stopped asking and just looked for a water fountain.

 

I was lucky in that we owned a Coke machine, I knew where the keys were, and I knew how to use them. Not that I abused this privilege, but I knew how to take advantage of it when I was really motivated to do so.

Water fountains today are as likely to be called "Water Bottle Refilling Stations" as they are bubblers or drinking fountains. I hated to use public drinking fountains because some fool had nearly always left a disgusting cud of spent chewing gum in the drain, and looking at it made me retch.