Third Job of Bob - Gas Station Jockey

4 May 2007

Third Job of Bob - Gas Station Jockey

This entry was posted on 5/4/2007 at 01:30 AM and is filed under Jobs of Bob.

In my senior year of high school it came to my attention that the gas station down from the high school was looking for a gas jockey.   A gas jockey was a guy who pumped the gas into your cars.  This was the days before self service.  Anyway, the lady who sold eggs to the gas station (they had a dairy cooler) knew my mom.  Mom bought our eggs from the egg-lady also.  The egg-lady said the station manager was looking for another guy to help out.  Mom dropped the tip to me and I stopped in the station after school. 

Those were the days before human resources rules.  Expecting to get grilled by the manager, I brought notes to help fill out the application.  Ol' Ray the manager just asked if I was the kid who had worked on the farm since I was 12, took a puff on his cigarette, and asked from a veil of smoke, "can you start tomorrow?"

Ol' Ray was a chain smoker and sent me down to the bank sometimes with a bag of money.  He had me use his own pickup truck.  The ash trays were always spilling over and he had one of those bean bag ash trays on the dash too - also over flowing.  The ash trays in the store were alway bulging too.  Ray was a Korean War era veteran and always took a big drag on one of his lit cigarettes when he would mention he spent the time in France not Korea.  He mentioned things he had a chance to do in France but never did. "What would it matter now," he always would say.
I will never forget the smell of old ash and window cleaner.  You see we pumped the gas and cleaned the car windows.  Ray insisted we have all our money bills facing the same way with face up, and small bills to the inside of the roll with the roll stuffed in our work shirt pocket.  The people paid us at the pumps.  Every so often we would come in the store and ring up some of the cash.  To this day I always carry my extra bills that way.  

The drinking age was 18 and after work me and the assistant manager Dave who was about 23 hit the college bars.  Dave had been in the Army during Vietnam.  Some of his stories inspired me to make rather reasonable decisions about my own military time. Dave was also picking away at college - he seemed to know everyone in town and the college.  Just before I shipped out that fall, Ray asked me if I could work the day before I would be leaving. Of course I said yes.  Mom said if he did not count on me he would never have asked.  That logic still seems Wisconsinish.  

The one regret I have is that after I came home after three years, now myself a Vietnam era veteran, I can't remember checking in on Ray.  I spent my time in Germany, not Vietnam just like Ray had spent his time in France and not Korea.  I know Ray died a while after I got home.  I remember Mom bringing it up.  I remember going into the station after I got back but I never caught up with Ray.  I have since learned you can't re-do things like that.  Now in retrospect I sure would have liked to chat with Ray a bit when I got back.  Dave too, but he had left town I heard.  

The lasting image of Ray I have is of him on every Friday night pulling into the station to fuel up his truck.  His pretty wife always smiled and chatted with the employees politely.  Side note: Ray had a beautiful daughter also who was only a year or so behind me in school.  When I got out of the Army she asked me once why I had never asked her out.  I did not admit it but I just assumed she was too pretty for an old farm kid like me - lost chances - but I digress.  Any way Ray always pulled in the station with a crisp, clean gas station uniform on.  The name  Ray was proudly displayed over his shirt pocket.  He worked there seven days a week - he always opened about 4:30 a.m. and left after the evening shift had settled in about 6:00 p.m.  It was also the beginning of the days when places like that were open seven days a week for long hours.  The one pleasure he allowed himself was to take his wife out every Friday night to a tavern for the traditional Wisconsin fish fry. 

I hope they have fish fry where every you are Ray.

This week's soldier to remember is Specialist Paul J. Sturino, 21 of Rice Lake who died on September 22, 2003 from a non-hostile gunshot wound.  He was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and was in an area south of Mosul in northern Iraq.  He was in Battery B, 2nd Battalion, 320 Field Artillery Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.  Sturino was the fourth Wisconsinite killed during military operations in Iraq.  Originally with a tank detail based in Lawton, Oklahoma, Paul transferred to the 101st Airborne in Fort Campbell, Kentucky to be a paratrooper.  He went to Iraq in March 2003.  Sturino had re-enlisted for another year as a member of the 101st but his tour of duty was subsequently extended because of the war.

3,361 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.

25,090 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring 2003.

72 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.

Soldier of the week and military casualty information sources: cnn.com; and, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.