The End of an Era
My mom called the other day to say the old Marathon gas station was finally closing. I immediately started having flash backs to some of the sweetest teenaged memories.
All the hottest of the car obsessed boys worked there which drew us girls to visit far more often than the need to fill up our gas tanks. My sister and I both dated best friends that worked there and we spent long hours in the grimy office waiting for them to finish at work and take us out.
The owner must have been crazy but he really liked being surrounded by teenagers. There was only one other employee that was technically an adult. He didn’t act it and he was our beer source. For the price of a six pack he would buy us all the alcohol we wanted.
We worked on our own cars when things were slow. ‘68 Baracuda convertible, old Chevy truck, ‘72 Monte Carlo, ’70 SS Nova, ’68 Mustang, ’77 Firebird, ’68 Camero where some of the cars we drove. Mine was the 1972 Monte Carlo with a 402 big block, dual carbs, dual exhaust, air shocks, with metallic brown paint so dark the cops always wrote black in the box for color. You had to be careful cause every time you tapped the gas it squealed the tires.
When I got in trouble at home for missing curfew, my dad would disconnect one of the carburetors and let the air out of the shocks. I’d hustle down to the station and get one of the boys to put it all back before heading downtown to cruise the strip.
Everyone honked and waved when they drove by the station. Us girls hung out so much that the owner finally made a deal with us. If we girls agreed to not hang out at the station every day (drooling over the boys) then on Saturday nights we could come up and pump gas for tips and hang out with the boys. This deal made the station very popular on Saturday nights since we wore service station uniform shirts tied under our breasts and cut off shorts.
We made more tips in one night than the boys made all week. It always ended up being beer money and as soon the station closed and the beer run had been made, we’d head to a party, a barn or a corn field to listen to hair metal bands and drink til curfew.
One of the guys loved the place so much that he eventually bought the station from the owner and things continued as usual but with a new bunch of teen groupies as we all moved into adulthood.
I mourn the end of the full service gas station.
posted by The Teller | 4:22 PM
2 Comments:
you had a '72 Monte Carlo? Awesome. I drove a '71 Chevelle, at least for a while. My favorite car ever (to this day) is a '69 camaro, though I'd settle for '67 or '68. Our wannabe car hormones were burned off by racing to and from track practice and jumping the railroad tracks on the way home. We'd drive way too fast and listen to Def Lepard and Journey on the 8-track way too loud. One day, with three of us in my friend's '68 Mustang, we left the ground on the west side of the railroad tracks and came back down 66 feet later. When we hit the ground, we didn't move another inch, but dug the transmission into the pavement and smashed the oil pan into the engine. Who knew you could only do that on TV? 66 feet! we were famous!
A few years ago, when I was home visiting my folks, I asked Dad to drive over to Kentucky to visit the home of an author whom I really like. We drove by lots of Service Stations along the Ohio river that were my dad's old cruising haunts, and about which he'd never said anything. I heard dozens of wonderful stories as we drove.
I feel sorry for the malls and movies kids. The pimped out rides that the kids had no hand in themselves. Those were the days of muscle maintenance, and fix-it-yourself.
Dual carbs? 402? you are awesome!
My favorite was the barcuda convertible. It was the sweetest ride ever. The guy that owned it was the one that eventually bought the station. We put the thing together from scratch. Many a late night was spent with all of us working on that car, from the engine to the body to the interior. He was my boyfriend's best friend and sometimes he'd let me drive it while he pumped gas at the station. I'd never park it and get out. I just drove it all over town until I had to return it.
My car was pretty bad ass and I used to make enough money drag racing to pay for gas and smokes to cruise the strip all weekend.
66 feet! Freakin Awesome!!
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