Category: Things that Disappeared When You Weren’t Looking

I grew up with dad preferring an Apco gas station in my hometown. He would pull in, the attendant would greet him by name, fill the car, wipe the windshield, check the tire pressures, and hand me a sucker. It was a little ritual I always looked forward to.

In 1973, a bunch of angry Arabs thought they would teach the US a lesson and cut off their oil. A lot of good effects actually came from that. It became imperative that vehicles get better gas mileage. It also made us conscious of alternative energy sources (although we have since slipped back into unconsciousness).

However, it unfortunately sounded the death knell for service stations, as they used to be known.

Gas station owners quickly saw the benefit of discounting gasoline with the option of self-service. After all, we were paying the shocking price of around fifty cents a gallon for gas! We happily would pump our own gasoline to save a quarter on the fill up.

It was a common sight in the later 70’s to see stations with self-service and full-service islands. However, even these began to dwindle, and nowadays it’s rare to have an attendant offer to fill your vehicle (except for Oregon and New Jersey, where it’s actually mandated by law).

I was flustered recently by the experience of a full-service station. I pulled into a Sinclair station in Springdale, Arkansas and stepped out to fill up. An attendant walked over and said “I’ll handle that, sir.” I actually forgot what I was supposed to do. I stood off to the side foolishly, and finally remembered that I needed to just sit in the driver’s seat and relax.

So if you want to experience full-service fill ups, look around. There are still a few out there. Just remember how to act once you pull in.

Time was, usually located on Main Street within walking distance of the Dime Store, there was an establishment that carried generic automotive supplies like oil, gas treatment, tires, freon, anti-freeze, windshield wiper blades, and wheel covers. Additionally, they offered diverse non-automotive items like lawn mowers, gardening equipment, higher-end toys (e.g. Radio Flyer wagons), major appliances, and even firearms!

Every town big enough for at least one traffic light had one, and quite a few burgs that lacked an automated traffic control system still managed to support a Western Auto store, or in the central United Sates, an Otasco.

There were probably other local versions of the ubiquitous retail establishments in other parts of the country, as well, If so, please share your memories of them, readers.

They were located everywhere because they offered what people wanted and needed. After all, our fathers all had cars, and you certainly couldn’t buy anti-freeze at the IGA. And not every town had a Sears or Montgomery-Wards either, so lawnmowers and clothes dryers had to be obtained elsewhere. Thus thrived the automotive store.

They were fun places for the entire family to visit. First of all, they smelled like new tires. What a great ambience that was! Second, they were brightly lit by their fluorescent fixtures, their white vinyl-tiled floors would spread the illumination far and wide, and the staff was always very friendly and patient, even with highly active seven-year-old kids like me running all over the place.

And the amazingly cool stuff they sold! Dad was impressed with the beautiful riding and self-propelled mowers, although it would be many more years before he would spring his hard-earned bucks for such luxury. Mom enjoyed the shiny new refrigerators and washing machines. And then, there were the VERY nice toys that captured the attention of Yours Truly!

Otasco, founded in 1918 by three Jewish Lithuanian immigrant brothers living in Okmulgee, Oklahoma (amazing, huh?), had branch locations all over what was known as the Four State area (Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas) in the 60’s. Miami had one, so did many other small towns in twelve different states. Some even offered groceries among their wares for sale.

Otasco used to send me into a frenzy every winter. They would begin TV commercial campaigns every November complete with a catchy Christmas tune and two or three nice toys. Our parents were then barraged with requests from kids who would see the ads four or five times every Saturday morning. Our poor mothers and fathers!

But the strategy worked. I remember getting a VERY nice fire truck that had been featured in an Otasco Christmas commercial that my parents were told about at least a hundred times.

Automotive stores thrived throughout the 50’s and 60’s, but with the economic downturn of the 70’s, many of them went belly-up. The appearance of discount store chains like K-Mart and Wal-Mart was also a nail in the coffin. K-Mart sold everything and more that Western Auto or Otasco did, only cheaper.

Interestingly, automobile parts stores began spreading like wildfire at about the same time, with AutoZones and NAPA’s coming to occupy many of the now-abandoned downtown buildings once home to the automotive stores that we grew up with. While they don’t sell appliances or lawnmowers, they have taken the concept of automotive supplies to the next level, offering specialized items like emissions control sensors, alternators, and water pumps.

But as sure as 30-cent-a-gallon gasoline is gone forever, so are the automotive stores that were once located on Main Street of practically every small town in America.

I’d sit on his lap in that big old Buick
And steer as we drove through town
He’d tousle my hair and say son take
A good look around
This is your hometown . . .

The first time I heard the great Bruce Springsteen’s My Hometown I picked right up on that line. I used to steer the car all over town myself, sitting on dad’s lap and very conscientiously keeping the big Plymouth safely centered in the lane.

Today, of course, such irresponsible behavior by a parent would likely land them in court facing charges of child neglect.

But let’s be honest. Not only have times changed, so have cars. The cars we Boomer kids rode around in were big mobile masses of thick steel. They could survive impact a lot better than the little Tercel I drive to work (and get 35+ MPG while doing so ;-). Our grandchildren are certainly safer nowadays buckled into their car seats.

But at the age of seven, I had one of my earliest tastes of responsibility. It’s a shame that learning experience is no longer possible.

When my daughter was born in 1986, mandatory car seats had just been enacted in Arkansas for children under the age of two. So we purchased one before she popped out into the world. Nowadays, they have to be used until a child is six or so, and anyone older than that must be buckled in.

But flash back to the 50’s and 60’s and automobiles were much less regulated places to be. Seat belts showed up on new cars early in the 60’s and were largely ignored. If you wanted to use them, it often meant digging them out of the crevice formed by the seat meeting the back support.

However, their use was advocated by public service ads on TV and in magazines. But my stubborn Norwegian father would never hear of wearing them, even though he didn’t object to my doing so on occasion.

One day, when I was just tall enough to see over the steering wheel on his lap, he turned the wheel over to me. I knew the day was coming, because one of my friends had told me about doing the same thing with his father, and I had asked dad for the same experience. He told me that some day I could.

I had since observed his technique for keeping the car nicely on the road. On straight stretches, he wouldn’t simply hold the wheel still. No, he would make subtle corrections to the course as we motored down the highway. I took note of that, and would sit in the car while it was in the driveway and meticulously imitate his artifice.

Then, one day when I was seven, I finally had my chance to steer the car. And I was up to the task, making those same little adjustments that my father did without his realizing he was doing so. I, on the other hand, was acutely aware of their importance.

I steered the car many times after that, and was even given full driving privileges with our 1965 Chevy pickup on our farm property when I was twelve. I highly esteemed the honor, and was very careful about avoiding both stable obstacles like gates and fences, as well as the mobile versions like cows.

Nowadays, for better or worse, a kid may take the wheel in their hands for the very first time when they obtain a driving permit as a teenager. But some of us Boomers can look back on being quite experienced at maneuvering automobiles through traffic long before leaving the ranks of childhood.

Oh, what horrible, neglectful parents we had by today’s standards. First of all, they smoked! In the house! Second, they would let us head out the door in the morning, and not give a second thought to us until we wandered in at suppertime! And, horrors of horrors, they let us ride in the back of pickup trucks!

Oh, the PC police would have them arrested and flogged nowadays. But nobody gave a second thought to any of that stuff in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. Life was an experience that required a bit of common sense. On thew other hand, lawyers have turned present-day life into an experience of needing, indeed DEMANDING protection from one’s own stupidity.

When I was eight years old, my father obtained a blue-green 1966 Chevy pickup. We had just moved to a farm in rural Missouri, and a pickup was a necessity. I rode in the bed of that truck for countless miles. I would sit against the cab of the truck (dad insisted on that, we’re back to common sense) and savor the wind blowing through my summer-bleached-blonde hair. Riding in the back of that truck was a lot of fun.

Dad bought a stock rack for that pickup as well. That allowed the hauling of one or two cows. When the rack was on, the sitting-against-the-cab restriction was lifted. I could climb the rack and face into the 60 MPH wind. That was cool, too.

I loved that old truck. In 1973, when I was thirteen, dad let me drive it in the pasture. I was able to master a three-speed-in-the-column transmission at a very early age.

In 1978, Subaru introduced the Brat, a small pickup with actual seats installed in the bed. The seats were gone after 1985, and riding in the bed began to be viewed as taboo.

In local communities, tales were shared about drunks who fell out and were instantly killed. Soon, laws were passed that made criminals out of fathers who did exactly what MY dad did,

Nowadays, we get ticketed if we don’t have our seat belts on. Ironically, if you rode a motorcycle in Arkansas during the 70’s, a helmet was required. IMHO, that’s common sense. If you take a tumble on a bike, road rash hurts for weeks, but brain damage is permanent.

But nowadays, Arkansas bikers have fought for and earned the right to ride helmet-free. But if you get caught driving with passengers back of a pickup, you’d better get ready to cough up the price of a steep fine.

Somehow, it’s all politically correct.

When I envision a new article for I Remember JFK, I am often surprised by the amount of information that is out there for me to research. As regular readers know, I like to ferret out the history of whatever subject I cover. In the case of the bikini, that meant going all the way back to the 4th century! But with today’s entry, the long-lost oil can, I was surprised to find very little on its past, and its subsequent replacement by plastic screw-top containers.

Fortunately, my memory banks are still in good shape. So off we go…

The oil can, as we know, excuse me, knew it, came about in the early twentieth century. It was then that a standard quantity of one quart was sold by most companies. The earliest cans had a solder seam. Collectors prize these oldest examples of oil cans.

By the early 40’s, the soldered seal was gone, replaced with a crimped version. During WWII, when metal was in short supply, oil was sold in cardboard boxes, similar to the milk cartons we drank from in grade school.

After the war, the cardboard oil boxes disappeared. But manufacturers did begin creating the oil can that most of us remember: not really a “can,” per se, but a familiar cylinder made of heavy cardboard. It was cheaper to produce, and proved just as effective as its metal counterparts.

Thus, many a garage in America had, somewhere within its midst, a stack of oil cans. These could be opened with a standard “church key” opener, or, if your dad was prone to splurge money on gadgets, you might have a genuine service station spout, which would pierce the top of the can if shoved in with a bit of force.

Oil cans were a ubiquitous part of our lives, seen everywhere and barely noticed. But in the 1960’s, the oil can’s demise began to be written.

Sometime around the middle of the decade, a plastic cylindrical can was created. It had a metal top, and you opened it exactly like a regular oil can.

But the early plastic cans never really took over the world. It would be the mid eighties before the twist-off cap version of the oil container would appear. It would prove so popular that the oil can would vanish by the end of the decade.

What wasn’t to love? The plastic containers were resealable. They cost next to nothing to produce. And they could be made in any size, allowing you to lug one five-quart jug out of the discount store instead of five individual quarts. You can pour your used oil into the empty container and take it back for recycling.

But another little piece of our past has disappeared. Perhaps we can blame it on Navin Johnson’s tormentor in The Jerk.

As we drive past gas station signs that advertise prices per gallon that far exceed the hourly rates of our first jobs, we Boomers find ourselves looking longingly into our memory banks for the regular phenomenon that was experienced in the mid 1960’s: the gas war.

Gas station owners hate high gas prices as much as the rest of us. The only sure winners when prices achieve record highs are the owners of the basic asset: crude oil.

We get angry when Exxon posts high profits, but if they were posting losses, then it would have a deleterious effect on the economy and anyone who owns mutual fund shares.

At this point, I would like to state that I am no fan of Exxon, or any other gasoline producer. I suspect corruption is rampant at high levels within each corporation, and millions or billions of dollars of funds are finding their way into rich people’s pockets illicitly. But I digress. This is supposed to be about nostalgia.

The fact is that with the much more stable prices of crude oil and gasoline in the 1960’s, gas station owners were able to have gas wars amongst each other that would bring huge grins to the faces of our fathers, as they filled their big cars with gas that might be as much as 20% cheaper than it was the day before.

The gas station owners were making good livings selling fuel at 30 cents a gallon. They could afford the luxury of dropping prices periodically by such a margin for short periods of time. They would either break even, or still manage to turn a small profit. The station owners would frequently hold such wars with mutual agreement.

Unfortunately, the profit margin per gallon remains about the same today for station owners as it did in 1965. I’m not talking percentage, I’m talking cents per gallon! Ergo, gas wars are no more. When a station is selling gas three cents a gallon cheaper than the one down the street, THAT’s a modern-day gas war.

Sure, gas prices make us angry. But it’s not the gas station’s fault. When was the last time you saw a gas station that wasn’t also a convenience store? Selling two aspirin for a dollar or more is how they make a profit, not by selling regular gasoline for three bucks a gallon.

But we Boomer kids still have fond memories of when those signs would go up at local stations that would put our parents in such a cheery frame of mind for a week or two: GAS WAR.

In the 60’s and 70’s before the Oil Crisis, gas stations would offer you cool stuff free for filling ‘er up at their places of business.

That seems strange today. Most of the time, you pay at the pump with a credit card and never see a human. Or perhaps you walk up and pay (in advance) some surly guy behind bulletproof glass.

There’s not a whole lot of hope that he’s going to give you a free dinner plate for filling up.

But go back to the 1960’s and earlier, and service stations (as they were known) tried hard to get your business. In fact, they bent over backwards.

In addition to doing all of the work of filling your car, checking your oil, and making sure your tires had sufficient air, they would give you a gift out of sheer gratitude that you honored them by purchasing their gasoline.

I guess times have changed just a tad.

I remember most of the giveaways being dishes and glasses. And they weren’t bearing the name of the station or oil company that provided them, either. These were completely generic items that you could set out for company without them ever knowing that you obtained them free of charge, well NEARLY so.

The stations that offered these tantalizing baubles usually charged two or three more cents a gallon than the ones who MERELY filled your car and checked your oil and tires.

Hey, that was quite a difference when gas was less than 30 cents a gallon.

But it was nice being viewed with gratitude when we pulled in for a fill up, instead of being glared at.