THOSE WERE THE DAYS MY FRIEND, WE THOUGHT THEY'D NEVER END

Blog number   177                                                              28 May 2008

The neighbor lady came over last night and told me that it looked like I had a flat tire.  Yep, I did.  I have had flats before - lots of them, but they exhibited a low tire.  THIS one exhibited a FLAT one. Squashed.  Methinks someone flattened it on purpose as opposed to somebody flattening it by accident.

The lovely Teresa thinks the neighbor lady did it so's she could speak to moi.  I have my doubts, and several years ago I would have definitely denied that ANYONE would ever do such a thing for that purpose.  But I have had life experiences that tells me that anyone can do the most outrageous thing for the most outlandish reason.  I didn't used to think that way.  I thought everyone was reasonable, but my experience with a mailman who misdirected my retirement check because he was jealous that I was retired and he had to work told me that there is no limit to the idiocy of humans.

Be that as it may, I have in my possession, an electric pressure pump.  So I pumped the tire up and so far - two hours later it still holds correct pressure.  Fixed?  Apparently.  But this got me to thinking about gas stations where you could always go to get your tires aired.  Not too many of those around anymore, and even if you find one, you probably will need your own tire pressure gauge.

When I was a teenager, whenever you pulled into a gas station, you would run across a rubber hose which rang a loud bell, signaling the attendant that he had a customer.

"Gimme a dollar's worth of regular."

"Check the oil and tires?"  This was said while the gas was being put in, which was followed immediately by a washing of the windshield.  Sometimes the windshield would be washed while the attendant asked, "Gas?"

Anytime you wanted to know what time it was, any gas station in the country had a big clock easily seen from outside.  You could walk into any clean, clean, rest room, whether you were a customer or not.  It didn't matter.  These people were SERVICE station attendants.

I miss the "Flying Red Horse" - Mobile gas, I think.  A full-sized red horse galloping on top of a twenty foot pole.

Sheesh!