About the only thing that was constant in our lives from the time that I can first remember was the old gas station, Conejos County Gas and Oil.
The earliest memories I have are of Bonnie riding on pickup runner boards to get to go to the garage. Dad worked for Boyd Pagett. Dad would drive the gasoline delivery truck, fix tires, pump gasoline, service automobiles, and other general labor. I remember going to the garage when Boyd owned it, but those memories are not very vivid.
What I do remember is pulling weeds. Yup. Pulling weeds. I liked to go to the garage and get treats. There was a pop machine and a glass cabinet with candies and items for the garage. I liked to get a soda pop and a bag of peanuts. The customary way of drinking pop was putting peanuts in the glass bottle and drink the pop as it metered out the peanuts. To earn the pop and I candy I was given the task of pulling weeds. My appetite for sweets was diminished after a half hour or so.
There were extra boxes of candy stored away for stocking the candy cabinet. I was allowed to restock the candy cabinet and in turn could have a candy bar. My favorite was Oh Henry.
In the office there were these old desks that appeared to be old school desks. These were chairs that had an attached platform on one side, where you could slide in and sit with the table in front of you. The desktops were carved with dates and peoples initials. I must admit that I made my additions.
That was a dusty old place. The streets in town were not always paved. The dust raised by the automobile traffic must have had a little breeze that pushed it all into the garage.
There were bulk products that we dispensed. The oil that was used to change oil in cars and trucks was stored either in the reservoirs with metered pumps on them or quart cans. It was fun to watch the oil salesman pouring oil into dispensers.
The perimeter of the whole office area was encircled by v-belts for alternators, generators, water pumps, and air conditioning pumps. The office occupied only a small portion of the building. There were tires stored also. We sold Gates tires and Gates belts.
The tire machine was out in the garage next to the large garage door. The door had 3 panels. One panel opened against the office and the other two panels had a hinge that connected them and they articulated together to the other side of the opening. The floor was a bit lower than the sidewalks. When I was a bit older I was the master of the tire machine. I changed many tires with that old machine. It worked by attaching the center of the wheel that held the tire to a hub with a large nut that had a tapered face on it. The taper would center the wheel on the machine. There was a spring loaded pin that would fit in one of the lug holes on the wheel to keep it from spinning. The head of the machine was ratcheted so it would spin one direction but not the other. A set of bars with specially shaped ends made up the rest of equipment for tire repair.
We also had an assortment of hammers, wedges, and steel bars for manipulating truck and tractor tires. Back in those days we used inner tubes in the tires to hold the air pressure.
I remember spending a few hours on the river on some of those tubes.
In the back of the garage was the shop where the mechanic would do more major type work.
Half way back was the grease rack. The rack would raise vehicles into the air to allow easy access to the bottom of the vehicle. The grease rack was bordered by a greasy table with drawers and grease and oil dispensers.
We used cloth rags to wipe excess grease (of which there was plenty). The rags were collected for a period of time and then would be cleaned by a commercial cleaner from Alamosa.
Delivery and sales people would come visit us to stock our cabinets and equipment. I wish I had some pictures of all this.
I learned to weld by trial and error. We had a stick welder and an oxy-acetylene torch.
The earliest memories I have are of Bonnie riding on pickup runner boards to get to go to the garage. Dad worked for Boyd Pagett. Dad would drive the gasoline delivery truck, fix tires, pump gasoline, service automobiles, and other general labor. I remember going to the garage when Boyd owned it, but those memories are not very vivid.
What I do remember is pulling weeds. Yup. Pulling weeds. I liked to go to the garage and get treats. There was a pop machine and a glass cabinet with candies and items for the garage. I liked to get a soda pop and a bag of peanuts. The customary way of drinking pop was putting peanuts in the glass bottle and drink the pop as it metered out the peanuts. To earn the pop and I candy I was given the task of pulling weeds. My appetite for sweets was diminished after a half hour or so.
There were extra boxes of candy stored away for stocking the candy cabinet. I was allowed to restock the candy cabinet and in turn could have a candy bar. My favorite was Oh Henry.
In the office there were these old desks that appeared to be old school desks. These were chairs that had an attached platform on one side, where you could slide in and sit with the table in front of you. The desktops were carved with dates and peoples initials. I must admit that I made my additions.
That was a dusty old place. The streets in town were not always paved. The dust raised by the automobile traffic must have had a little breeze that pushed it all into the garage.
There were bulk products that we dispensed. The oil that was used to change oil in cars and trucks was stored either in the reservoirs with metered pumps on them or quart cans. It was fun to watch the oil salesman pouring oil into dispensers.
The perimeter of the whole office area was encircled by v-belts for alternators, generators, water pumps, and air conditioning pumps. The office occupied only a small portion of the building. There were tires stored also. We sold Gates tires and Gates belts.
The tire machine was out in the garage next to the large garage door. The door had 3 panels. One panel opened against the office and the other two panels had a hinge that connected them and they articulated together to the other side of the opening. The floor was a bit lower than the sidewalks. When I was a bit older I was the master of the tire machine. I changed many tires with that old machine. It worked by attaching the center of the wheel that held the tire to a hub with a large nut that had a tapered face on it. The taper would center the wheel on the machine. There was a spring loaded pin that would fit in one of the lug holes on the wheel to keep it from spinning. The head of the machine was ratcheted so it would spin one direction but not the other. A set of bars with specially shaped ends made up the rest of equipment for tire repair.
We also had an assortment of hammers, wedges, and steel bars for manipulating truck and tractor tires. Back in those days we used inner tubes in the tires to hold the air pressure.
I remember spending a few hours on the river on some of those tubes.
In the back of the garage was the shop where the mechanic would do more major type work.
Half way back was the grease rack. The rack would raise vehicles into the air to allow easy access to the bottom of the vehicle. The grease rack was bordered by a greasy table with drawers and grease and oil dispensers.
We used cloth rags to wipe excess grease (of which there was plenty). The rags were collected for a period of time and then would be cleaned by a commercial cleaner from Alamosa.
Delivery and sales people would come visit us to stock our cabinets and equipment. I wish I had some pictures of all this.
I learned to weld by trial and error. We had a stick welder and an oxy-acetylene torch.
12 comments:
by the time I made it on the sceen... I remember the desks, and Arlo having wintergreen lifesavers in the candy department! There were a lot of yarns spread in there sitting around those desks! I remember Don use to call me on the phone in the garage before we got married! It seems like the phone was a wall phone.
I started working in the Garage when I was seventeen. That was the year that Donnie went on his mission. I was no mechanic and had no desire to become one.
I did enjoy sitting in the office and listening to the customers spin their yarns.
We had one customer that I had a tough time with. He was cheap and he was cranky. When he came into the office, I went and found something to do.
One day, he came in and I went to find something to do. His old pickup was a rattle-trap. It was held together with bailing wire and the windows were filthy.
I grabbed the chamios and sponge and cleaned his windows all the way around.
In a few minutes he left. He wasn't gone very long when he came back, and he was furious. There was a wad of slimy chewing tobacco running down the window and he informed me in no uncertain terms that if he wanted his windows cleaned, he would tell me so.
I have always felt confident that I did a good job of washing those windows.
303-843-9900
Isn't it amazing that I can remember a phone number from 40 years ago, but I can't remember what I'm doing long enough to get it done!
Arlo used to tell me that women could not hold a candle to the gossip that men told. He said that the stories that the men who came into the garage told were surely worse than women told.
303 843 5235 843 5306 whoses #s?
remember George Jacobs? I do remember when we got the tire machine. EVERY MORNING WHEN i GOT TO WORK MY FIRST JOB WAS TO SWEEP THE WHOLE GARAGE. I went to work for uncle Boyd when I was 10 or 11 yrs old. There are some special memories there. I didn not get a chance to work with Kent or Larry. I wished many times that I could have.
I remember the smell of the garage. And the feeling like it was low... you looked up to the street! I remember very little of it, but the things I do remember, I think are funny and make me chuckle!
I miss the old days of being tiny and man-handled by everyone; put on floats and in carriages with grandparents, aunts and uncles, especially those cousins!
The dust like dirt and the flat rocks that lined the roads that weren't paved to the east of the garage. The sounds of horses in the distace or on the pavement. Grandma's garden not that far from the station.
Playing outside in the dark and other times playing with the flash lights in the big window as grandpa sat in the back watching while we tried to get the attention of the houses that surrounded the G Unit's home!
Danette, do you remember doing that?
The garage was lower than the street. There were two times that was a definite disadvantage.
One was when there was a lot of rain. More than once, I stood at the door and pushed water out onto the sidewalk as fast as I could to keep it from filling the garage.
The second time that was a disadvantage was when the cottonwoon trees were in full bloom. The cotton would float into the low spots. Trying to sweep that stuff out of the garage was like trying to put a cloud into a zip-lock bag!!
Sweeping the garage, like Donnie said, was a major ordeal. Randy, Gordon, and I spent time each day sweeping the garage. The office was swept daily too. I remember the broom salesman coming around on a regular schedule to sell us brooms. It was a big deal when nylon bristle booms were introduced. They cleaned the floor so much better than the old straw brooms.
Sweeping the garage was one of the things that I did well. I enjoyed seeing that the work I did made a difference. It was interesting to me, that I could use the dirt from the sweeping to clean up the oil spots on the floor.
I'm grateful that Dad and Mom taught us to work. It has made a difference in my life.
One of the things I hated was changing oil in old farm beaten pickup trucks that leaked and dripped everywhere.
Cleaning the grease rack with gasoline and a floor scraper was one of my least favorite activities.
I remember reading the little sign on the gas pump that said.
Caution
Contains Tetraethyl Lead
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