By: W.C. Reader

Nowadays, when you feel your car is running low on fuel, it is almost impossible for you to drive into one of those old-fashioned "Mom and Pop" filling station and tell the attendant to "Fill-it up, and check the tires, clean the windshield and look under the hood." More thank likely many of you never heard of the term filling stations and you turn to self-serve places such as automatic service centers, convenience stores, and the like, where you pump your own gasoline and then pay the cashier. If you need air in the tires, water in he radiator, or the windshield cleaned, you do the work yourself. There still are a few full-service stations in the area, and some people speak of them in glowing terms, just as if they are an innovation that belongs this generation.

Not necessarily so and we may organize a tour to take some of you folks in Kenedy around town some day and point out the locations of 20 or 25 of these so-called "full-service" stations. We pick Kenedy because we grew up there, and we helped our father and mother operate one of these small stations in that city. All we offered for sale to the public was petroleum products (gas and oil), and such service as could furnish to help keep the car running.

The brand of gasoline, which we sold, was "That Good Gulf Gasoline" and since it occurred during the period of "The Great Depression". We charge 19# for a gallon of gasoline, making a profit of 1 1/2 # a gallon. Kerosene (coal oil) also was done in those days and we charged 10# a gallon for it.

Now for all the money we took in from the sale of gas, what did the customer get for it? Full service, of course, even if he bought as little as two gallons or as much as five gallons. First we checked the lube oil and especially with the Model "T", this involved getting down on our knees and opening the cocks, which were located on the side of the crankcase. If oil didn't run out the topone, you added a quart. Then, the windshield always needed cleaning, so you took a rag, dipped it in a bucket of water, and washed away the dust. Most times, you were asked to check the air in the tires, because the thin tires of that day and age always seemed to have a leak. And the request from the customers we used to dislike the most was to help crank their cars. Don't know yet how we escaped a broken arm when the car backfired. Those are the basic services we provided, and you didn't get rich at selling gasoline at 1 1/2# profit. That's why mom and pop, and all the older children had to pitch in to run these early day "full service" stations.

We don't know if it's still there, but Preston and Amy Jane Parsons used to have mounted in front of their home in Kenedy one of those old hand pumps that was used in the sale of gasoline. It will bring back memories of those old "full-service" filling stations. And Preston might add a few stories about them.

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