Old gas stations

[2jakes]

I'm always thrown why you changed your avatar because, then, sometimes I forget it is you posting since I'm so used to you using your prior one.

I grew up where clothes lines were part
of the backyard.
I rigged one up for my blue jeans.

I was refering to the toxic fumes from
the gas stations.

I changed back the avatar!
I hope you never change
your delicious "pizza" avatar.
This also applies to Lizzie
because she tells it like it is with no pretense whatsoever and I also like
the original Cream of Wheat box
she has in the background.

 

[Fading Fast]

I grew up where clothes lines were part
of the backyard.
I rigged one up for my blue jeans.

I was refering to the toxic fumes from
the gas stations.

I hear ya on the fumes.

We had a clothes line out back (as did most of our neighbors) but also in the basement, which, in the winter with the inefficient boiler and all those poorly inserted heating pipes keeping the basement warmer than you wanted, worked quite well.

 

[tonyb]

I rather identify, if that's the word, with the one underneath (Bodfish store) as well as a couple of other ones. It speaks of a time before interstate highways and when there was more going on, so to speak, in the more rural parts of our country. These days, however, except within commuting distance of the larger cities, the countryside has become depopulated and the small stores that used to be found here and there have closed up shop. But it may be that such places have disappeared for other reasons, such as the lack of traffic. The population of the country is greater than ever, so the people most be living somewhere. But you see evidence of what I'm speaking of everywhere, including in places that have even a great increase in population. Tiny gas stations, general stores, "tourist camps," and old farms with a tumble down barn and silo, even an old school building here and there. I could even add abandoned company stores, mining tipples, railroad tracks that haven't had a railroad car pass by in decades, the remains of company camps with only the foundations of the houses remaining among the weeds, if you know where to look, abandoned factories, old car dealerships for cars that haven't been manufactured in 50 years, abandoned roadside attractions, overgrown "waysides," motels and restaurants that have been bypassed when the interstate was finished.

Modern times.

I wonder if that depopulating of the more remote regions might reverse in part due to a growing population of retired people and improved communications and transportation technologies. Many older people profess a preference for a quieter existence, which smaller settlements allegedly offer, and staying in touch with more distant family and friends had never been easier. I could see myself living out my days in Ellensburg, maybe, or Chelan. Waterville is just too small, though.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Are they suggesting you go 50,000 miles without an oil change?

You may not like cars today because they're expensive, complicated, lack power, are too big, are too small, and so on. But my father once commented that getting 75,000 miles out of an engine was something of an achievement.

Perhaps the mechanic would explain to the customer, "No, sir, not fifty thou miles without an oil change. But if you use this oil regularly, and change every 1500 [or whatever] miles, Conoco says your engine'll last that fifty thou before needing a rebuild. See?"

 

[Benzadmiral]

Rob

Didn't Sears offer a Service Station Play Set by Marx back in the Fifties that looked much like this? (Minus the pants on the clothesline, I mean.)

 

[BlueTrain]

I wonder if that depopulating of the more remote regions might reverse in part due to a growing population of retired people and improved communications and transportation technologies. Many older people profess a preference for a quieter existence, which smaller settlements allegedly offer, and staying in touch with more distant family and friends had never been easier. I could see myself living out my days in Ellensburg, maybe, or Chelan. Waterville is just too small, though.

In some cases, yes, in other cases, no. Some places that have become depopulated are not that remote. But places that really are remote may not actually have improved communications or transportations. In other words, it depends. However, many places that are no longer the bustling places of commerce they were in the 1950s (for one reason or another) are in fact popular places for retirement, especially for those who grew up there and moved away to make their fortune.

There are also some places, like the Northern Neck of Virginia around White Stone, Kilmarnock and Irvington, to be specific, that have become popular retirement areas for the relatively affluent. They're the "come here's" I mentioned elsewhere. They cause the property values to go, help to create a new local restaurant industry and generally irritate the locals--and those who retired there first. That's the old "last one in" syndrome. It helps to have water-front property. Essentially it is gentrification of what was once nothing more than a small farming and fishing community such as the place Miss Lizzie speaks of frequently. Other signs of such a development include expanded churches, improved roads to the big city and way more expensive cars than were once common in the area, especially Mercedes, Volvos and BMWs. But the county ends up with more money and the schools are eventually improved. The academies established when public schools were desegregated go out of business. The real estate business is booming.

 

[Stearmen]

 

[BlueTrain]

Referring to places that have seemingly become depopulated, it isn't always what it seems. It is true that you can travel through an area and see a lot of abandoned properties, including old gas stations, general stores and buildings that may have been the location of some small industry at one time. But what is just as likely is that people's habits have changed. I'd say that people are more willing to drive further to do their shopping, given that more people have cars and the roads are usually better. They may also expect more than the local businesses could provide. That's been the trend for over a hundred years.

It's still true that some areas have lost significant population but it doesn't follow that that's good or bad.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Rob

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Atlantic keeps your car on the go!
For business, for pleasure, for any kind of weather,
Atlantic keeps your car on the go go go!
So keep on the go with Atlantic!"

"It's time for Red Sox Baseball, presented by the Atlantic Refining Company and your Atlantic Dealer, who brings you Red Ball Service!"

 

[BlueTrain]

"You can trust your car to the man who wears the, uh, what was it the man was wearing now?

 

[Fading Fast]

"Atlantic keeps your car on the go!
For business, for pleasure, for any kind of weather,
Atlantic keeps your car on the go go go!
So keep on the go with Atlantic!"...

That is a horrible jingle or ad copy or whatever. I get it, they wanted to associate the generally positive concept of "on the go" in your head with Atlantic, but it's so annoying and poorly written that I'd look to buy my gas elsewhere.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Parents of Clyde Barrow (of Bonnie and Clyde fame) and their family station.

Rob

 

[LizzieMaine]

It did, however, have a very insinuating melody that has been embedded in my head for the past fifty years.

Atlantic was one of the main Red Sox radio-tv sponsors for a very long time, and gave away a lot of Sox merchandise over the years. I still have a rather elegant portrait of Carl Yastrzemski that was given out as part of a series at Atlantic stations in the summer of 1969. And I've got a baseball-bat-shaped dip pen with Jimmie Foxx's signature on it that my grandmother sent away for from an Atlantic radio giveaway offer in the early forties.

 

[2jakes]

Parents of Clyde Barrow (of Bonnie and Clyde fame) and their family station.

Rob

Today:

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Today:
View attachment 77412


View attachment 77413

That's awesome, 2...where is the station located?

Rob

 

[2jakes]

That's awesome, 2...where is the station located?

Rob

Dallas.

Ford V8
(Clyde's favorite)

The sawed-off weapon in the middle belonged
to Bonnie Parker.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Thanks, 2...I keep wanting to make it out to Gibsland, LA to attend the annual "Bonnie and Clyde Days" event...being an 'armchair criminologist' of Depression-era outlaws is another passion of mine.

Rob

 

[2jakes]

Thanks, 2...I keep wanting to make it out to Gibsland, LA to attend the annual "Bonnie and Clyde Days" event...being an 'armchair criminologist' of Depression-era outlaws is another passion of mine.

Rob

If not mistaken, its held near the end
of May.

If I had my "druthers"...
Little Bohemia! (Dillinger & Co.)

I've never been in that neck of the woods.
I hear tell it's nice place to visit.

 

[Fading Fast]

It did, however, have a very insinuating melody that has been embedded in my head for the past fifty years.

Atlantic was one of the main Red Sox radio-tv sponsors for a very long time, and gave away a lot of Sox merchandise over the years. I still have a rather elegant portrait of Carl Yastrzemski that was given out as part of a series at Atlantic stations in the summer of 1969. And I've got a baseball-bat-shaped dip pen with Jimmie Foxx's signature on it that my grandmother sent away for from an Atlantic radio giveaway offer in the early forties.

Is it 'cause as a kid we focused on give-aways more or has it really changed as it seems there are fewer of those free giveaways by sponsors going on today? Maybe it's because I don't have kids so I'm not aware of them, but as a kid it seems stores did more of that when I was growing up.