Fill ‘er Up – with Memories

I stopped at a local gas station last Saturday morning with my two daughters – the oldest driving, thanks to her newly-issued permit. She slipped from behind the wheel and headed into the gas station/convenience store with her sister – the same one we’ve been going to since they were both in car seats – in search of their usual gas station fare; a bottle of pop, a snack, and maybe a pack of gum for later.

As I watched them go in, and began pumping gas, my memories carried me up the road several miles and back in time several decades – to Clay’s Sinclair Station.

Clay ran the place with his “boys,” and it was a regular stop for my dad and me at least a couple of times a week. I don’t remember Clay’s last name. Don’t know that I ever knew it, really – same for the names of his “boys.” There were two of them, and teamed with their dad, they were like a pit crew to every neighborhood car that stopped to gas-up. That’s what dad always called it. We never “stopped for gas,” or “went to get gas,” we always stopped to “gas-up.”

Before the engine of dad’s ’55 Chevy sputtered to a full stop, one of the boys always had the hood up to check the oil and water; and the other set the pump and washed the windshield. Clay’s job was, my dad always said, to “… chew the fat with the paying customers.” In the few minutes it took the boys to tend to the Chevy, he and dad caught up with all the local sports, shared stories about working for a living, and managed a couple of comments each about “the old ball-and-chain.”

Clay’s wasn’t a place to get snacks or gum; although there was an old Coke machine out front that dispensed those little 7 ounce bottles of pop for a nickel – but only part of the year, because in the winter it was unplugged and emptied, so the pop wouldn’t freeze. And, now that I think about it, you could get gum – but it was from a penny gumball machine put there by the local Rotary Club.

Clay’s was the place you went for gas, oil, and “good used tires,” and “reliable batteries” – as the sign in the window promised. And there were some bonuses, too – S&H Green Stamps and, once in a while, “special edition drinking glasses” – one free with each fill-up of 10 gallons or more.

I was snapped back to the present by the “thunk” of the gas pump stopping and by the voices of my daughters – they brought me a Diet Mountain Dew – urging me to hurry up, so we could get going to where ever it was that was so urgent for them to get that morning.

I hung the nozzle back on the pump, screwed on the gas cap, took the receipt from the slot, and made my way around my car – to the passenger door – as my daughter started the engine.

While it sometimes seems that things have changed so much, it’s really not the case, you know? Clay’s Sinclair Station, and everything about it, may be just a memory from my childhood; but I realized that I was doing exactly what my dad and I did on all those Saturday mornings Downriver for so many years – making little everyday memories that will last a lifetime.