FULL SERVICE!

HE'S NO SAILOR! HE'S A PROUD GAS STATION ATTENDANT!

Buying gasoline was an entirely different experience when you and I were young. Today, full service gas stations have about completely faded away. New Jersey and Oregon until recently did not allow customers to pump their own gas. There are a smattering of diehard gas station owners here and there, but they are dinosaurs now, like Sinclair Oil's Dino mascot. Why a dinosaur as a symbol for a petroleum company? Because of the old saw that says the dinosaurs died out and turned into oil deposits. We hardly care now which convenience store brand of gasoline we buy, but back in the days of stand alone full service stations, most men (yep, I said men, because most wives cared little about such things, but their husbands did, so they bought what he preferred. Unless a man was traveling out of town, almost all were loyal to the brand of gas their buddy sold at his station, in their hometown. Daddy bought Gulf, Texaco, or Sinclair, even when on vacation, if he could find one in the town we were passing through.

The nice attendant is pointing to the spot on the map, where the wind would finally blow their pretty lil hats from their head.

Back then, gasoline was marketed stressing the benefit of their gasolines and motor oils, and why they were superior to those of their competitors. Service stations almost always did more than simply pump gas, they often sold tires, radiator hoses, fan belts, windshield wiper blades, and an array of gas or oil additives. A great marketing ploy to give wives an incentive to ask their husband to stop at a particular station for gas on the road, was to offer trading stamps. Likewise many oil companies offered freebies to customers kids. We knew what the different companies were handing out to kids, and nagged daddy accordingly, even in fierce competition with mama if they didn't give stamps, so she would out-nag us, pulling for her favorite stations. My all time favorite gas station freebie was a Sinclair Oil Dino shaped bar of green soap.

I recall getting a pair of these plastic horseshoes to stick on the bumper at a Gulf station in Gatlinburg.

When you pulled in and approached the pumps, the long black hose that rang the bell as you drove over it alerted the attendant/s, who would always ask, "fill'er up?" They would clean your windshield with window cleaner and those blue, gas station paper towels that were not to be found anywhere else, while your gas was pumping. They would check the oil and water levels if you wanted, see how much air was in your tires, and sell you a road map maybe.

Like a dirt track pit crew!

Stations almost always sold soft drinks and snacks, and I do beleive it was a law they had to sell bubblegum! I never remember a station that didn't have an open box of it by the register. Oh, and I was about to leave out the gas station restrooms, they were generally spotless, with some glaring exceptions. It seemed that every attendant could dress in all white, and never get a grease stain on them.

"HI HUN!"

Those stations usually had two service bays, one with a lift that was where the mechanic could do his work, and the other was generally a car wash bay as it had a drain in the floor. There is more but that is enough for now.