Vickers

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette:

VICKERS

Gas prices are lower this month and that’s a blessed relief.

Nevertheless, it’s still rather painful to pull up to the pumps.

Going to filling stations used to be a whole lot more fun, like in the ‘60s, when (leaded) gasoline sold for 32 29, 28, 27… cents per gallon.

In those days, though, my interest in the town’s gas station rested primarily with its compressed air and the candy counter.

In Pawnee Rock, under the Vickers sign sat a small wooden building right along U.S. Highway 56. Drivers veered off the highway onto the dirt and sand driveway.

Like every station, Vickers had a pressure hose lying in the driveway which, when car tires passed over it, rang the bell inside (ding-ding) and Cal Rogers, or someone in his family, would come out, and the driver would say, “Fill ‘er up with regular, please.”

Or sometimes the driver said, “Just put in two dollars worth,” which equaled about six gallons in those days.

While the tank was filling, Cal washed the windshield and checked the oil. He’d put air in your tires if they were low.

Customers wanting something other than gas parked to the side of the building. Usually, there was at least one person standing in the station visiting with Cal. Other times the place was crowded with high school boys who seemed too tall for the room.

In a small town, these social spots are essential. They offer a way to connect, a place to tell stories or to find out what’s going on around town.

In larger communities, you’re less likely to find these conversational venues where anyone who walks in can join in on the chatter. But in a town of 400, the conversations are always about someone you know.

Recently, I heard from Rick Clawson, one of my classmates from Pawnee Rock, and we’ve exchanged a few e-mails. When he was a kid, he lived about a block from Vickers.

“The gas station was a regular hangout for some of us,” Rick said. “It seemed like daily we would be at the Vickers station airing up (bike) tires or patching inner tubes. Cal would sell us patches for ten cents and we would stay right there and repair the tube.”

Like Rick, I’d often walk my bicycle to Vickers to air up a tire. Or sometimes my friends and I would stop by for a Pepsi. In a bottle, a glass bottle. Which we drank while sitting on the concrete stoop of the station. Then we’d place the empty bottles in a wooden crate beside the door.

Sometimes we’d spend our nickels and dimes on a Zero candy bar or Super Bubble bubble gum. The candy was tucked away in a glass counter. Behind the counter was the colorful display of cigarette packs: Camels, Lucky Strikes, Winstons.

This small room also held a chest-type refrigerated case for pop and another for frozen treats. One wall had shelves stacked with cans of motor oil.

Also in the building was the men’s room. The women’s restroom was outdoors, around the corner.

Having the women’s room outside was a common feature of gas stations during that era. Women were given the key to what was usually an unheated, drafty room with a rust-coated sink and spider webs in the corner. As a kid, I was puzzled as to why women had the less-pleasant arrangements.

It made more sense though when someone told me that the reason for those outside restrooms was to save women and girls from having to walk through male territory – the greasy, rough environment that many service stations were in those days.

The Pawnee Rock Vickers station was definitely a hangout for men and boys, but I always felt comfortable enough there.

The place left good memories with me and my friend, Rick. And probably with most of the townspeople.

That’s all we have now, memories. The wooden building is gone.

Vickers was just one gas station in another small town along another Kansas highway. But it was our gas station.

Copyright 2008 – Cheryl Unruh