TIME WARP

     Recently, I pulled into a gas station that had the lowest price in the area.  Imagine my shock and pleasant surprise when the attendant also pulled a squeegee out of a soap and water bucket and cleaned my windshield, back window, both side mirrors and even the headlights!  I could not remember the last time that happened.  I was in a time warp.  I had been taken back to an era when gas stations were routinely called “service stations” because, well, they provided services, not just expensive fuel you had to pump yourself.  Incidentally, old timers back then called them “filling stations.”

       The attendant’s name was Tim, and like me, he was old school.  We grew up during the days when the only things the U.S. imported were cheap toys from post-World War II Japan, which at the time had a struggling if not impoverished economy, before they figured out how to make our cars and electronics better and more inexpensively than we could.  (I dare you to find a TV set made in the U.S.A.)  It was a time when the country ran on its own sources of carbon-based fuels and was not dependent on imported energy.  It was a time, Tim reminisced, when his dad sent him to the corner service station with a jerrican and 25 cents to buy a gallon of gas, and his dad expected change from the quarter!  I too remember filling up my jalopy with regular at 19 cents a gallon.  Factor in inflation, and the price of gas should run about 80 cents a gallon now.  When was the last time you paid 80 cents, much less 19 cents for a gallon of gasoline?

       In those days, when you pulled up to the pump, the gas jockey (attendant) would invariably ask:  “Check under the hood?”  Computerized ignition systems were undreamt of.  Cars sucked oil or leaked oil and the wise thing to do was check the dipstick on every fill-up, especially if you were driving an older gas-guzzler.  It was pretty routine for a car to need a quart of oil with every 3^rd or 4^th fill-up.  Gas jockeys would clean the windshield, and if you asked, they would also check your car’s tire pressures, since tires back then had no steel belts and ran on inner tubes that leaked too.  Many of the gas jockeys were teenagers in high school.  It was a good job for a kid, but like inner tubes and bumper jacks, those jobs are long gone.  It seemed that nearly every service station also had a mechanic, and if your engine ran rough, he’d adjust the carburetor.  If he heard the front end squeak, he’d put the car on the rack and lube the ball joints, which needed to be greased with regularity.

       Back then, self-service didn’t mean pumping your own gas.  It meant being your own mechanic, changing the oil, filters, plugs and points and tuning the sparkplug firing sequence by ear, unless you could afford an expensive timing light.  If you were smart, you carried a tool kit in the trunk, along with a couple of gallons of water and a gas can.  Flats were common, fan belts broke a lot, distributor caps cracked, radiators leaked and gas gauges on cars were notoriously unreliable.  A lot of guys I knew enjoyed working on their own cars.  Grease under the fingernails was a mark of manhood.  Although I’m sure some women also got grease on their hands back then too, I never met one or even knew of one.

       There were no malls in those days, so we hung around service stations, a rite-of-passage that included a lot of salty language and heaps of braggadocio about one’s knowledge of things mechanical.  Along with oil changes and tune-ups, I did my own brakes (no discs back then), and in my tool kit was a timing light, torque wrench and even a hand-pumped lubricator for those pesky ball joints.  Sound like a lot of work?  I guess, but then again, there were no time-consuming distractions like Facebook, video games, or nearly 1,000 cable TV channels to keep you from tinkering with your car. 

       Is this one of those “gee, I miss the good old days” laments?  Nah.  I like my modern gadget-filled car.  It’s a lot more reliable and a lot safer to drive than anything I had back in the 50’s.  However, I kinda miss being able to tinker with the engine.  Pop the hood on a car made these days and everything in the engine compartment looks like it’s neatly packed in a gift box.  All that’s missing is a bow on top.  If you do want to work on your own car, you have to get an expensive computerized diagnostic device that plugs into a special receptacle connected to your car’s electrical system.  Heck, even the simple act of replacing a burned-out headlight bulb is now a major operation on many cars, thanks to sealed polycarbonate headlight assemblies.

       It’s what cars didn’t have that I remember from my youth.  Cars had no air conditioning.  They didn’t have alternators; they had generators.   Storage batteries weren’t sealed like they are now, so you had to keep an eye on the fluid levels.  There were no bass-thumping multi-channel stereo radio-CD players or handy GPS systems; just an AM radio that worked sometimes and an analogue clock that never did.  Cars had no power brakes or power steering, which meant that parallel parking gave you a real workout.  There were no pampering conveniences like heated 6-way power seats, power windows, power door locks, powered side view mirrors or automatic dimmers on rearview mirrors.  Dashboards were lit by only one or two low-wattage bulbs, not by a dazzling array of LED’s individually marking every single function, switch, button and icon. 

       There were no safety features like seat belts, air bags, or ABS systems either.  The first seat belts were actually after-market items, 2-point lap belts you bought at Western Auto and installed yourself.  The car companies resisted the idea of making seat belts standard equipment because they said it was too costly.  It took a government edict to force them to perfect 3-point systems and install them in all model cars and trucks.    

       Cars back then didn’t even have something we now take for granted and what many people forget to use—turn signals.  You had to roll down the window in any weather and stick the left arm out to tell other drivers where you were going, straight out for a left turn or cocked straight up for a right turn.  Then, as now, many drivers didn’t bother signaling their intentions.  Parenthetically, I’ve noticed, as perhaps you have, that the drivers who don’t use turn signals are often the same ones who do seem to know how to flash extended digits a lot, accompanied by shouts of some rather unfriendly epithets. 

       Anyway, back to my time warp on memory lane.  Technically, as already noted, all gas stations in New Jersey are service stations, in that the attendant has to pump the gas for you.  A few still have mechanics on duty to fix a flat, change a brake light bulb and provide routine maintenance like oil changes.  But there’s one service station on Route 130 where a guy named Tim carries on a tradition that I thought disappeared many years ago.  Although his gas station is a bit out of my way, Tim’s earned himself at least one loyal customer, because for all I know, he may be the only attendant left in America providing a service that used to be routine, and all it takes is a squeegee in his hand and a smile on his face. 

John Wydra