Taking Care of Business A lot of “business” is handled here. A customer drives by, sees someone’s truck or car parked beside the station and comes in to conduct business. Several of the regulars are carpenters and one is a plumber, another a shade tree mechanic. If the regulars can’t do your job, they tell you who can. Doctors, lawyers, bankers and ministers stop by Herb’s to get their cars filled up with “white gas” and catch up on the news. Whether it’s something personal or professional, being respectful is expected. But no one has heard of being “politically correct.” When a car drives up to the gas pumps it runs over a hose that rings a bell inside. Herb gets up, usually from a tire he is sitting in, goes out to the car, greets the driver, pumps the gas, cleans the windshield and back window, checks the oil and water, and the tires if asked. Gas sells for 20 cents a gallon. The service is free. If Herb is busy working under a car on the grease rack, one of the regulars or another customer will go out to help the person at the gas tanks. The customer pays for the gas. The regular takes the money, opens the cash register, deposits the money or makes change out of the drawer. Over the years, Herb’s Service Station adds milk, bread, snacks, cigarettes and “fast foods” to become more than just a gas station. When you enter the service station, there’s a drink box to the right, stocked daily with Pepsi, RC Cola, orange soda. On the left end of the drink box there are bottles of white and chocolate milk. On the bread rack in front of the back counter there are stacks of bread, small cakes and cookies. The bread man comes every day bringing fresh bread baked at the bakery a few blocks away. Behind the back counter, shelves contain the fast foods of the day: cans of Vienna sausages, potted meat, sardines, pork and beans, soda crackers. When anyone gets hungry he gets a can off the shelf, opens it with the can opener attached to the wall, adds vinegar from the jar left on the counter, sits on a stool behind the counter and helps himself to the “sodie” crackers. Most days Herb or someone opens a loaf of bread, leaves it on the back counter and anyone who wants to make a sandwich helps himself and pays for it. A lot of Tom’s peanuts are sold and added to a “dope” (soft drink in a bottle), usually a Pepsi or RC Cola. At the checkout counter there is a big jar of hot sausages. Men buy these. Everyone buys Moon Pies. Once in a while someone will ask Herb for credit until payday. Herb lets that person run a tab to buy gas, tires, even bread and milk. Payday rolls around and the first person who sees the customer’s check is Herb. If someone has a flat tire they call Herb. Herb goes to where the person with the flat tire is stranded, puts on the spare tire or brings the tire back to the station to repair, and then takes it back to put on the car. On snowy, icy roads someone runs into a ditch and calls Herb. Herb cranks up his tractor and goes out in the bad weather to help. At closing time Herb gives a ride home to whoever needs it. And occasionally Herb gets a call from the sheriff to come get someone out of jail. Whether by necessity or by choice, families around here in the 1950s stayed together. We ate at home, traveled locally, pretty much lived, worked and died within a 25-mile radius of our home. We traded with local merchants, bought our gas and had our car serviced at a neighborhood service station. Virginia Carswell Parrish, daughter of Herb Carswell who owned Valdese Amoco Service Station from the 1950s to the early 1980s, lives in Valdese. She and her brother, Gary Carswell, own the family farm in George Hildebrand and are members of Rutherford EMC. The Valdese Amoco station is now the Small Engine Performance Center. |
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