Tag Archives: Gas station

Sentimental about the Sixties?

Image by Vika Glitter from Pixabay.

I gave my brother a sweatshirt for his 70th birthday that read, “I survived the ’60s twice!”

I, too, grew up during that decade. Younger people believe we are close to our expiration dates. Past them, actually, but no one’s noticed yet.

I miss some aspects of the 1960s.

First, I was considered too skinny. Bread and butter sprinkled with sugar would help me grow up healthy and strong. Sigh.

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay.

The media consisted of print, radio, television and vinyl. They never eavesdropped.

Television variety show performers sang and danced without votes, masks or Simon. Cheesy sitcoms dominated, but aren’t harmless, stupid shows like Mr. Ed better than harmful, stupid ones?

Parents could rubber-stamp Disney productions as appropriate.

Gas station attendants pumped gas, cleaned windshields and fixed more than a hot dog. Plus, gas cost 25.9 cents per gallon.

Image by Falkenpost from Pixabay.

During phone calls, we spoke with other human beings.

Nobody locked doors in our small town. Schools and churches remained open. Security codes and guards? Unknown.

Recently, I visited my former school band director, now an octogenarian. We marveled that after summer practices, we often hiked through cornfields to the woods — no permission slips required.

Mr. C. didn’t lead assertion or feel-good sessions. Unlike my daughter, who said if she had to watch one more self-esteem video, she’d puke, I didn’t receive fire hose doses of you-must-believe-this.

Image by Jo Justino from Pixabay.

However, my brain hasn’t expired to the point that I don’t recall negatives during the 1960s.

I could wear slacks only at home. Girls wore dresses even to ball games.

I don’t miss bright blue eye shadow. Or white lipstick.

Smoking was restricted … nowhere. Children even “smoked” candy cigarettes.

I remember KKK recruitment signs in restaurants. A Caucasian never served an African American.

What Boomer doesn’t recall being slathered with Vicks® VapoRub™? Also, injured klutzes like me wore orange Mercurochrome like war paint. A small side note: Mercurochrome contained mercury.

I don’t miss Vietnam. And assassinations du jour.

Image by svs72 from Pixabay.
Image by AbouYassin from Pixabay.

Jell-O in flavors like tomato and celery.

Toni® home permanents and brush rollers.

Because of nuclear testing, we were forbidden to eat snowflakes. Get-under-your-desk drills for nuclear emergencies seemed odd, even then.

Finally, working out consisted of using machines to “shake off” fat.

Actually, that might be nice.

Right before a snack of bread and butter, sprinkled with sugar.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What decade makes you feel sentimental and why?

Being There

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay.

These small words elicit king-sized effects.

My first cranky thought, another songwriter has run out of originality, as in:

Being there (ooh, baby)
Being there (ooh, baby)
Being there is like … 
Being there (ooooh, BABY!)

Okay, I need a second cup of coffee today. With double cream.

Much better.

Now I recall that being there when airline personnel solicit volunteers to take a different flight, I might land a free future trip.

Image by Andy Leung from Pixabay.

Being in the right checkout line can mean the difference between three Tylenol® and only one.

Fifty years ago, my being there to observe this cute boy from a library’s balcony changed our lives.

Being there at a library during a 1970 Christmas break placed me near the railing of a second-story atrium, eyeing my future husband below. Thus, I ensured he wasn’t with a girl and could “accidentally” run into him. (He still calls this stalking, but that’s because he hasn’t yet drunk his morning tea.)

Being there at a gas station when someone, perched on a ladder, is changing prices can mean a savings of 11 whole cents per gallon. Although, if the price is upped 11 whole cents, you’ve picked the perfect time and place to ruin your morning.

Though that timing isn’t as bad as certain shoplifters’ when, according to Reader’s Digest, they attempted major heists on Shop-with-a-Cop Day.

Being there can get complicated. Still, we want others to be there for us.

My mother refined this into an art form. One joyful day, when I learned I was ranked 10th in my high school class, I arrived home to the fragrance of muffins fresh from the oven. She’d baked them either to celebrate or console. Whatever happened, they were there for me.

Image by Robert Owen-Wahl from Pixabay.

So was Mom.

However, she also was there to enslave me with chores, require church attendance, and stare through my dates and me with righteous black eyes.

Years later, I appreciated her when I, too, baked after-school treats, mini-vanned my kids everywhere, and wandered into the den to “get stamps” from my desk while they were entertaining dates.

Being there can be threatening, wonderful, scary, tedious, triumphant, smelly, or comforting, but rarely boring. And lots better than not being there.

The ice cream being there is good too.

Sometimes, it’s just plain cuddly.

Tonight, Hubby and I are watching a Cubs game. We don’t make brilliant conversation. We don’t have to make conversation at all.

We simply savor being there.

Ooooh, baby.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Who’s been there for you?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Kind Riot

O Lord, You know that recently, a hundred young voices tore through my sleep. A multitude marched down our dark street! Anarchy? Violence? Then … I recalled the local Christian college’s freshman tradition, begun in helping a convenience store stay open: students show up en masse to buy soft drinks. OMG, thank You for a riot rooted in kindness. But maybe they could shift their support to the day shift?           

Photo by Hubert de Thé from Pixabay

Cruising

Image by Peter H from Pixabay.

Even before spring, desperate parents, after excessive winter togetherness, pay their teens to cruise. Their alien music blares through wide-open windows, loud enough for Martian counterparts to keep the beat.

But we did it, too, right? Although when I cruised, gas cost 30.9 cents per gallon.

In my hometown, puberty’s onset compelled us to cruise Jerry’s Drive-In. We parked outside, as only squares ate inside. My girlfriends and I feared if we darkened the restaurant’s door, Percy Faith and his orchestra (Jerry’s Muzak®) would scar us for life.

Image by Michael Kauer from Pixabay.

My cruel parents once dragged me inside and made me sit by the window. I slid down into the booth and covered my head with a menu. Finally, I escaped to the restroom, but Mom followed.

She even talked to me. “Are you sick?”

Didn’t she know a Popular Person might be concealed in a stall, listening?

Afterward, on Saturday nights, I retreated to the second-coolest A&W — which tied with Jerry’s if your steady worked there. Fortunately, I was dating a cook. Sometimes, he came outside in all his A&W glory (apron, little folded hat) to wow me and my friends.

When we split, though, my A&W status plummeted. I returned to Jerry’s.

I’d noticed a tall, shy guy in my biology class, so my friend, Celia, and I officially added his house to weekend cruises. I’d perfected my slink-down technique: I could ride on the car’s floor an entire evening, yet record my targets like a satellite camera. Golf-green grass surrounded my guy’s house. Symmetrical evergreens. It was located near the A&W, so we also could zoom past and spy on my ex.

Once, when I drove past my crush’s house in my parents’ uncool station wagon, Celia hung out the window and screamed, “Steeeeeevie, baby, we looooove you!”

I peeled out, chastising Celia for endangering my fragile status with my new Numero Uno and his parents, who probably had been waxing their driveway.

Image by eslfuntaiwan from Pixabay.

However, no damage was done to my relationship with the sweet guy who made biology lab fruit flies so fascinating. Soon, he and I did a little cruising too.

“Want to go to the A&W?” my future husband asked as we pulled out of his driveway.

“I’d love it.”

And I did.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Where did you cruise as a teen?

Lost and Found Superhero

If I were to design a superhero, I wouldn’t create a Man of Steel or Woman in spandex. No power bracelets or magic rings. My superhero wouldn’t need a gas-guzzling super-car that always breaks the speed limit but never is issued even a warning.

Instead, I’d invent a superhero who finds things.

No computers or radar allowed. I want a superhero with an inborn, omniscient talent for zipping up black holes before they suck in all left socks, kids’ Spam Museum permission slips, and pens that write.

My superhero need not leap tall buildings in a single bound. I just want her to find fat-free mayo on sale. Minty breath mints. And Seductive Salmon.

Not an amorous fish. I want the lipstick. The moment I deem one my favorite, cosmetic gurus shriek, “Rachael Phillips likes it! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” My marketing kiss of death sends Seductive Salmon posthaste to a black hole.

Where our keys also reside. They disappear, especially when I was due somewhere 20 minutes ago. I find the keys to our first apartment and those to old cars we maintained when our children still (theoretically) lived at home. But current car keys? They vanished upon our signing the purchase agreement. I eventually find them — often in the freezer, beside my frosted-over cell phone. Still, both continually play truant.

As do gas stations. When driving to catch a predawn flight, I inevitably discover my gas gauge points below E. At this signal, all stations at all freeway exits disguise themselves as bait shops.

Please do not tell me to trust a GPS. Once, when I traveled with writers so hungry we gnawed our books, one of those cruel, lady-voiced demons sent us to five different boarded-up restaurants.

I might consider a super-GPS that could locate tax receipts. Correction: the right tax receipts. I readily unearth one that records I ate a Belly Burger in Yazoo City, Mississippi, in 1999. But has anyone seen my 2020 W-2?

I also should program my superhero to lose things for me.

For example, my champion would swallow hated lyrics and toxic tunes that imprint themselves on my mental hard drive.

However, my superhero wouldn’t swallow pizza, strawberry-rhubarb pie, or moose tracks sundaes. That’s my job. Hers: banish the calories.

She’d deliver me from public restroom stalls with empty toilet paper spools and broken locks. My superhero would absorb the fines for library books I checked out during the first Bush administration. She’d scare away dandelions and crabgrass.

Oh, Lost and Found Superhero, please be real! I’ll give you a big, gas-guzzling superhero car.

But you will have to find the keys.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Do you need a Lost and Found Superhero?

The GPS and Me

For years, drivers depended on many sources to guide them safely to destinations. They obtained free gas station maps, flappy guides destined never to fold into neat little rectangles again. Drivers asked guys at the pumps for directions, trusting honest faces and hard-working, dirty-nailed hands to point them the right direction. Or they stopped total strangers who had lived so long in a town, they forgot the names of the streets.

By default, they endured backseat drivers who dispensed a continual stream of advice.

Today’s drivers aren’t content with these tried-and-true resources that cost them nothing but their sanity. Instead, they pay for a Global Positioning System, or GPS — and regard it as God’s Positioning System.

Once, I traveled with a friend who depends on Lavinia, her GPS, for road directions, restaurant locations and tax advice. Like most of her species, Lavinia spoke with a civilized British accent. However, she appeared bipolar. Although 26 lanes of semitrailers blocked our path to an off-ramp, she repeated “Exit!” until we climbed over them.

She often insisted we turn onto airport runways. Occasionally, we encountered a road that in Lavinia’s mind did not exist, resulting in a panicked chorus of “recalculating … recalculating … recalculating!” accompanied by fits of screaming. Not unlike me the week before Christmas.

I offered Lavinia my estrogen, but she refused.

If only she possessed a more pleasant personality. I, like other directionally challenged people, might prefer a Mr. Rogers GPS.

MR. ROGERS: It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood! I like you just the way you are.

ME: Thanks, Mr. Rogers. Can you help me find the BMV?

MR. ROGERS: That’s a tough one. But you can do anything, if you set your mind to it. Let’s turn right. Can you show me your right hand?”

ME: (raising both) I’m not sure.

MR. ROGERS: Can you count the number of smashed cars?

ME: No, but I can count the cars with flashing lights: one, two, three. …

MR. ROGERS: You’re so special.

Like other low-techies, I wonder if current generations soon won’t be able to find their bathrooms without a GPS. Do we ever stop to think global positioning systems find their locations per satellites — which line up their calculations with millions-of-light-years-away quasars and giant black holes?

Sorry, Lavinia. I know you have the best intentions in the universe.

But I can find black holes all by myself.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Would you rather ask directions or depend on a GPS?

What Kind of Store?

Have you noticed lately that businesses are teaming up to lower costs?

Image by RobynsWorld from Pixabay.

If you’ve driven interstates, you’ve probably taken breaks at truck stops that combine gas stations, convenience stores, and fast-food restaurants. Highly visible, their diversity serves tired travelers who want to find only one exit — and parking spot.

Other restaurants also have joined forces. For a while, I could sky my cholesterol at either a building’s fried chicken half or taco section.

Recently, though, that trend has waned. Perhaps, employees were exchanging secret recipes. Or maybe, desiring job security, they started to mug customers, dragging them to their side.

Businesses offering contrasting services seem to post success rates. Scorning the logic of bookstore-coffee shop and doctor’s office-pharmacy combinations, they often appear in small towns. I’ve patronized a computer-tractor sales store, which New Yorkers might find … unusual. Also, a car repair garage that sold used furniture. I’ve drunk lattes brewed at a hardware store.

Occasionally, even we small-town types blink at business combos. Hubby, wanting his coat cleaned, found himself staring at a store window’s sandy beach scene. The tanning salon also served as a dry cleaner’s drop-off.

Image by MustangJoe from Pixabay.

When my mother visited our small town, I had to explain why I’d driven her to the laundromat to buy a Greyhound ticket.

Having pastored in an isolated Oregon town (population 37), Mom shouldn’t have found that strange. The solitary business there served as combination restaurant, bar, gas station, post office and bank. My parents probably were the only missionaries their supporters knew who cashed checks at the Dry Gulch Saloon.

Our son and his family have followed a similar unique path, attending Sunday morning services where a boxing club, GED classes, pickleball courts and a girls’ Roller Derby team are housed. I never before had praised God in sight of a boxing ring, but Jesus, with His grassroots approach, might not have found that odd.

I wonder why certain combination stores haven’t yet appeared. Take, for example, a car repair garage-nail salon. Supplied with massage chairs and earphones to soften clanky garage noises, female customers would never ask, “Is my car ready yet?”

Instead, they’d pay for an engine rebuild. (Anything to avoid fixing supper.)

A combination electronics store-spa would please both genders. With men free to stare at screens and evaluate gadgets and women free to relax without doing either, store owners would make big profits.

Some parents suggest a combination birthday palace-psychological clinic, with discount therapy coupons for moms and dads.

However, we don’t want to see some business combinations, such as a tax accountant-bond service outfit. A fast-food-bait store. An airport with its own funeral home.

Saving money on overhead is great. I’m all about cooperation and mutual support.

Sometimes, though, wouldn’t going it alone be better?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What odd business combinations have you seen?