Immersion Worked For Me-Roadside Difficulties

IMMERSION WORKED FOR ME; I SAW THE INTERIOR OF THOUSANDS OF 1950'S, 60'S AND 70'S GAS STATIONS - FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS

ROADSIDE DIFFICULTIES PROVIDED ME SOCIALIZING TIME, WITH MY FATHER - BUT THEY WEREN'T THE BEST OF TIMES

     When I complained to a local car dealership, that had failed to properly repair a starter problem, in our Oldsmobile 98, after a major collision my wife had been involved in, I was furious when the head mechanic, showed me how to start the car if the ignition failed. No kidding. The guy showed me how to connect two metal points in the engine compartment, to start the engine with a long screw driver. I had no mechanical aptitude at all, and even the thought of lifting the hood made me nauseous. We had planned a day trip to St. Jacobs, to visit the antique shops and farmers' market that Saturday, and as it was, at around this time of year, I told Suzanne that the best plan, would be to postpone until better weather; or when this ignition problem had been properly repaired. But we later decided that we should go anyway, if the weather was clear, and take our chances the problem wouldn't repeat. It didn't happen every time, and sometimes it would be days of use, before the issue resurfaced. Everything was fine until we got to the market, and it began to snow heavily. We had a nice trip that far, and picked up some great food items from this wonderful Mennonite gathering spot. We decided to pull out a bit early in case it got worse weather-wise. I didn't want to be stranded in a snowstorm with two little kids, and a very modest quantity of provisions. I had lots of Polish sausage and pickles, but that wasn't going to cut it for the boys. We had a back up plan, to stay in a motel we knew down the road, but that would have meant phoning my parents in Bracebridge, to get them to drive south to Gravenhurst, to walk our dog Alf.

     I crossed my fingers, prayed, and tried to start the car. I heard that damn clicking, which meant the ignition had failed. I wanted to get my hands on the mechanic at that moment. So I had no choice, but to at least try to start the car, with the screw driver. I opened the hood, looked in, got scared, but went ahead and tried to connect the points I had been shown in the garage. Son of a gun. It turned over. I had actually circumvented a crisis situation, of an engine that looked monstrous in that compartment, but roared to life with my caress of a screw-driver.

     I was thinking about this today, writing my blog about "mobilia," and all the gas stations my dad and I visited on the continent during my youth. Maybe I had learned something practical on all those hiatus periods, watching and waiting for our cars to be repaired and back on the road. I mean you can't take it away from me, that I started the car with a screw-driver during a blizzard. I said a quiet thanks to my father, God rest his soul. We spent a lot of bonding time, sitting side by side in those smokey, heavily scented, vintage garages between Muskoka and Florida. I guess what I witnessed imprinted on me, in the practical sense, whether I knew it or not.

     A friend of ours brought in some old collecting magazines, for us to look at, over those lengthy coffee breaks we insist on having, in our antique enterprise. It's our business, and we'll slack off if we feel like it! Well, not really, but it's empowering to write this, even if we are far too dutiful in real life, to ignore work, or delay tending our customers. We always like to know what's going on in other fields of collecting, because we are generalist dealers, who occasionally get pieces that are way out of our area of expertise. But damn straight, we buy them anyway! So it is just a matter of due diligence, to research trends and price fluctuations in other fields of interest. I have been reading through the magazine, "Mobilia," which specializes in automobile collectibles, ranging from the real thing, that you can drive away, to gas station memorabilia, ephemera, advertising, and of course, toys. It's a neat magazine, and the one I have been reading is from October 1996.  I have always had a strong leaning toward automotive collectibles, but from a rather unusual perspective. Here's the story of how I turned onto mobilia collectibles from childhood; and it had nothing to do with actually collecting a single automotive relic or keepsake. (I did have a small collection of toy cars, and I had a peddle car when I was about five years old) These were, as I wrote about before, more appropriately, "collected stories," or "curious reminiscences," of hanging around thousands of gas stations, in my days driving with my old pop. It had everything to do with the fact we had the worse succession of automobiles, in poor repair, yet the hubris, the outrageously brave ambition to drive to Florida, and everywhere else in this province and Quebec. Always fully aware of our track record, of being stranded on some isolated backroad, due to mechanical failure or lack of fuel.

    It started in the late 1950's, when I actually was old enough, to fully appreciate what could be learned, listening and watching, while sitting for hours in a service station, in the city or rural setting. I found out what it was like in the most profound sense of experience and discovery. It was the sound of my dad gnashing his teeth, as he sat impatiently, trying to estimate how much the repairs were going to cost, that cost him most of his teeth, which were broken off and worn down to the gums. He hated dentists more than he hated mechanics. We never had enough money to cover the bill, without compromising everything else, including vacations. We often had to do without a car, once we arrived at a destination, because it was being repaired in the local garage. If we had a little cash, we might have rented one for a week or so, if ours was laid-up for that same period. My family was not lucky at all, with the cars they owned. None of them, until the late 1970's, in fact, until they started to buy new Chevrolet Monte Carlos, which seemed to relate to my father's rough handling rather well. They had at least four of them in twenty years, and they actually kept them serviced and in good operating order. In the final years of his life, Ed ran a nice little Chevrolet Cavalier into the ground, and as it was my inheritance, gosh, I had that moment of deje vu, standing there, looking at it in the apartment parking lot. It would have cost about four thousand dollars to fix it up, to make it roadworthy, but the book value was, by this point, only fifteen hundred dollars. I got a laugh at it though, because it reminded me of the kind of cars we used to drive around in, back in my youth, and the ones that would fail in the most isolated, and forelorn places in rural North America, forcing us to walk for assistance in all kinds of weather; without or without decent soles on my shoes or his.

     There is a scene in the seasonal classic, "Christmas Story," that always hits me square in the heart, reminding me of the relationship my father and I had, at roadside, in so many places across the province and in the United States, between Buffalo and our usual destination, in Daytona Beach. The scene involves a flat tire, and a roadside change, with father and son. Good times. Well, not really. My dad was a former sailor in the RCN, and knew every cuss word used by the North Atlantic Squadron. You see, it all had to do with my father's almost legendary inability to buy a car, any car at all, that was in good mechanical repair. I went most of my young life without any knowledge of what "new car smell" actually meant. We always bought used cars on the hunch, that if a vehicle looked good on the outside, and was waxed to a sparkling finish, (looking magical beneath the strung overhead lights, around the lot), the inner mechanics of said automobile, would be just as good, and just as reliable.

     My father was a sucker for a good sale's pitch, and seemed to gravitate toward the best story teller, who could make a wonky jalopy seem like a Queen's limousine, or a mafia staff car. He wanted to believe they were giving him the straight goods, and being honest about the shortfalls of the subject vehicles. Rust he could see. Dings in fenders, rust on the bottoms of doors, and corroded hubcaps, were easy to identify, and weigh against the better qualities of the car. It's what he couldn't see or understand of the intricacies of technology, rumbling under the hood, and below, that confounded him; to the point he relied too heavily on the honestly of the particular sales staff. He was a trusting guy, except when I told him I got an "A" on my math quiz. They needed to sell cars, and my dad always seemed to need another one fast. I hate to admit it, but my dad was an easy mark for the big pitch. The more glowing the salesman could make the story, the more likely we were going to drive that beast home that night. Truth is, my dad was an excellent lumber salesman, and would come to manage several major lumber companies in later years, but as far as mechanical stuff went, he had no aptitude whatsoever, other than to know the phone number for the service station, with a reliable tow truck driver; who would remove the problem from my dad's sight. As he was a traveling salesman for Weldwood Lumber, he did get a company car for the long hauls between clients from Burlington to London, Ontario. As far as logged miles, he should have been an expert on car maintenance; at the very least, knowing when to get the oil changed, or the transmission overhauled. He missed the mark every time, and that put us in harm's way many times; including being stranded on the 401 many times.

    The happiest he was with a broken car, was when it was hauled out of his sight, and over-hauled at the service station; always a matter of days, up to a week, before he had to reckon with the car once more, and budget-in the repair bill, to our modest economy. Ed, I believe, liked a little down time, from the responsibility of owning a car wreck, and for the period it was being repaired, he would bum rides from friends, and feel good about saving gas money; and not having to deal with being stranded on a side-road which happened pretty frequently. It was like the car had done him a favor, if it was going to be in the shop for a longer period of time. His problem was temporarily someone else's; for whatever period that represented. The longest repair time was one month, for a Viva Vauxhaul, that needed a new clutch, but it had to be ordered and shipped from England. I think he believed each car we owned had its own personality as witnessed by its quirks. Like not starting if the temperature was one degree below zero. The list is a long one.

     It seemed, we were always in emergency mode in those days. One other pressing reality about this, is that we were never prepared for emergencies either. My mother Merle used to suggest this, before we'd head out on the road, for a Sunday auto tour, but my father had full confidence in the luck of the Irish. He was afterall, the first of four sons of a tough Irishman by the same name. "Eddy" Currie. I suppose then, he felt it was incumbent, of fate to smile upon him, and us, but it didn't. He was lucky in a lot of ways, but not when it came to his relationship with motor vehicles.

     The most frequent roadside event, was the classic "running out of gas" misadventure. Ed would leave my mother stranded on the roadside, but he insisted I walk the several miles with him, to the closest gas station. I guess he liked the company. Merle used to yell at him and I was, on the other hand, the silent partner. And we never, ever, had a gas can to take with us. We always had to borrow one, from the station, but not before leaving a deposit to cover the cost of the container (in case we didn't return it). Ed was so over confident, about what liberties he could take with the "E" on the gas gauge; which I honestly believe now, he thought he could control with his mind. It could be sagging below "empty," and he would tell my mother, who by the way, had learned to watch him like a hawk, for the unpleasant potential of being stranded, that he was in full control, and we would make it safely to the next gas pumps. The problem with this, and our many inconveniences in this regard, is that he actually seemed to be able to "will" the car along, well past being void of gas. Every time he beat the gas gauge in this fashion, meant he would take a bigger risk the next time, until "bezinga", we would finally stall, and have to walk miles to get a can of gas. In this process, I had a pretty clear understanding of not only gas gauges and what "empty" really meant, in delusional thinking, and what gas stations looked like at all times of day and night, from a waiting room perspective. Sometimes we'd have to wait until the other person, who ran out of gas, brought back the can, they'd been forced to borrow, with an appropriate deposit of course. Twice they never returned, and we had to buy a gas can at the nearby hardware store. Sometimes the kindly gas station personnel would offer us a ride back to our car, but most of the time, we had to hoof-it again. A few would even charge us for the ride. By this point, my mother would be furious, and vow to never let my father run the car out of gas again. At least until the next time she got in the car, and her hounding meant nothing to his unflinching challenge to beat the gas gauge, as if in a boxing ring; as he had once been a pretty fair pugilist in the navy. He made challenges out of everything, but was never better than fifty percent successful.

     The other reality is, we always had mechanical issues, whether it was the gas gauge malfunctioning, or the muffler falling from the mounts, but hanging by one strap, so that it dragged with a spark trail down the road behind us. Which was neat at night, and caught the attention of all other motorists, who honked at Ed to stop the car. He wouldn't. Just waved at them instead. The clutch would burn out, the windshield wipers would quit in a rain storm, the headlights would fail at night, or the battery would lose its charge at the worse possible moment; like driving our hockey team to an away game. There were so many mechanical issues, that my dad just decided not to worry about any of them, but to carry a few extra bucks in his wallet in expectation of the very next thing to fail, or go wrong with the car. It was the only emergency planning he did for our motor trips. I can't tell you how many gas stations I had the privilege of seeing up close and very personal, because of the amount of time spent waiting for our car to be repaired. From the period of the late 1950's, my service station adventures began in earnest, and it carried forth, right into the late 1970's, when at any time, I might have to beg a ride from my parents to some destination I couldn't get to otherwise. They did, by this point, begin buying new vehicles, which was good because I wasn't available as much to walk for gas, or push the car when the battery lost its juice. When I became, what my mother called, "a big strapping lad," my father thusly sensed, it was acceptable to ask me to give the car a push, on those wildly cold mornings, when the battery was dead. The idea was, for my dad and I, to push the car; me from behind, and for his part, he pushed on the frame of the front door, so he could jump in, when it was rolling, and start it on the fly. It usually took three tries to make this happen. I was getting powerful thighs from all this car pushing, which really helped improve my skating capability in hockey.

     Looking at this "Mobilia" Magazine, I got a real kick seeing some of the service station fixtures, gas pumps, oil bottles and cans, plus all the neat automotive advertising I used to read, and re-read, while sitting on the old grease covered chairs in the waiting areas; which by the way, was usually close to all the action going on, in those small gas stations we inevitably had to visit in emergency situations. I watched mufflers being changed, tires and tubes repaired (patched), engines being torn apart, and brakes disassembled in front of me. I didn't have any mechanical aptitude in this regard, so it fascinated me how these grease monkeys could takes these complicated automobiles apart, and then piece them back together like wizards with their wands. Their wands were, of course, a wide array of (spanners) wrenches, tire irons, and sundry other screwdrivers, to fix just about anything of a mechanical function to the well being of the engine. It passed the time of day, honestly, to watch these highly skilled technicians working beneath, and above the vehicles in the bay. Some were on hoists, which was my favorite, while others straddled grease pits, where you could see the mechanic in charge, moving in silhouette, against the numerous beams, from hung trouble lights shining out against the blackness of the hole in the shop floor. My father, meantime, read all the magazines and newspapers piled on the table, with black fingerprints all around its outer edges. And I sure haven't forgotten the smell of these old gas stations; the predominate odour, that of the new rubber tires, stored in piles at the back of the shop, and the scent of their neatly stacked automotive parts, in an open area, to the left or right of where the repair work was being done. Every mechanic had that aroma embedded in their clothes and skin, and their hands always showed trace black, even after they came out of the washroom at around lunch time, to have their sandwich and bottle of cold pop. I bet they left black smudges on the white bread too.

     I studied the station waiting room, and sales area, with great intensity. Sometimes we would be forced to sit there for upwards of three hours, if the repair was major; so I did get a lengthy period to study all the products that were being sold there; and all the advertisements, including the promotional stuff, from the main station clock, to the girly calendar hanging arond the corner from the waiting room, that I could see in the mirror when the door opened. Each of the products being sold, from automotive to chocolate bars and cigarettes, had separate advertising dispensers, and stands; such as for rolling paper for cigarettes, and pipe filters and cleaners, situated for customer convenience, on the top of the glass display case, where the cash register was mounted. I got the full vintage gas station experience, from those years, because of my father's refusal to make sure the car he bought used, could muster at least several thousand miles of driving, before having to spend time in one of these vintage bays, on a hoist, or straddling the grease pit. I got to spend time with my father, but it wasn't really quality time; because he was always worried that, once on the hoist, they would find many other things wrong with the engine; and for much of this time, we didn't have the saving grace of a credit card with a monster ceiling. We had a pocket full of money, but sometimes, my dad had to promise with his soul, he would bring the rest of the money by the very next payday. My dad's word was good in this regard. The problem came, when we were in the United States traveling, and my dad couldn't drive back with the money to fulfill the repair agreement. These funds came right out of pocket, and yes, on occasion, we had to cut our vacation short by upwards of a week, because the car had fallen into serious disrepair. He never really learned from the misadventure of buying a crappy car; and he would do the very same thing, time and again. If the car looked good from the curb, it had to be a winner all way round. Boy oh boy was he wrong, and he got us into serious peril, because of his unwillingness to invest in a new car instead. He hated the whole concept of depreciation, and felt that purchasing a used car, saved us money. Just never in the long run. My father was a short term thinker, and felt he had beaten the system, if he could get a solid year out of the vehicle, before it started to fall apart in the driveway. But the more those cars fell into disrepair, the more adventures I got, in front row auto mechanics 101, at all kinds of service stations in Ontario, and through the United States, between Buffalo and Daytona Beach, Florida.     I watched automobile history evolve in those many stations, we Curries haunted in our heyday, of buying unreliable used vehicles. The other aspect of our many sojourns, in these automotive establishments, was the social / cultural side of service station heritage; because included in the hiatus periods, in those tiny waiting areas, was that you got to drink in the current events and gossip one is exposed to, with the comings and goings of regular gas station customers. We did spend times in "filling stations," like the ones from those glorious sit coms, of the 1960's, such as the garage where Gomer and Goober Pyle worked, in Mayberry, the home of Sheriff Andy Taylor and Deputy Barney Fife. You get to know a lot about a small town, any town, by hanging around a service station, with one of the few gas pumps in the area. One finds out stuff about the neighborhood, and who is doing someone else wrong; or who is in the dog house for coming home liquored-up the night before. Quite a few folks, obviously use gas stations like barber shops and bars, for gathering to "shoot the breeze" about community politics, and gossip about the scandals making the rounds. I don't remember too much about the service stations in Burlington, but I recall a great deal about the ones in Bracebridge, from the mid 1960's onward. Each garage had its loyal regulars, and cronies, who would sit in the waiting area, or lounge outside, to pass the time of day, morning, noon or night. For example, there were regulars, who came to chat, at Pine Point Garage on the north end of Manitoba Street, and a regular crew that used to sit on the window ledges of the Uptown Garage, beside the Library, also on Manitoba Street, the Goodfellow's station, across from the Dominion Store, and more elderly mates, in chairs by the pumps, of the Downtown Garage on Thomas Street. There were many more from the 1950's that had closed by time we moved into town; so this is by no means a history of garages in Bracebridge. Point is, each garage had its following of citizens, some that dawdled for long periods, drinking it all in; this culture surrounding motor vehicles and their maintenance. It was pretty fascinating for a kid to watch unfold, and as fortune would have it, I spent a lot of time with my chums, Rick and Al Hillman, at their father's Downtown Garage. Seth Hillman and Art Crockford were two great gents, who allowed us into the inner sanctum of auto repair, and even though I didn't learn how to repair engines, or replace mufflers, I watched with great interest, as these wizards worked their magic, in the spotty glows of many trouble lights, hung around the repair bays. My mother knew when I had been holed-up at the garage, because I smelled like grease, oil and gas; and did I mention, the rubber of new tires. I tell you one thing, there was no way on earth, you could get bored, being in places like this, because there was always something happening, that a kid like me, found out-of-the-ordinary, and exceptional to the normal fare, of being a kid in small town.

     I don't really know why, with my background, and experiences, that I never felt compelled to collect automobile memorabilia. I think in some ways, because I couldn't understand the mechanics of car operation, or do anything more in an engine compartment than say, over and over, "well, there it is, the engine," that I was not entitled full rights and privileges of the collecting field. I mistakenly assumed, for example, that one had to talk about engines and how to repair them, even to collect Dinky Toys. How could I get intimately involved in this discipline of collecting, if I was clueless about engine function and maintenance? I wonder what percentage of gas station and automotive collectors, are as clueless as me, about the technical details of car or truck repair? Bet it is a small percentage. It's why I chose something I could understand, like books and art. But it doesn't mean I didn't collect stories about automobile heritage, from the vantage point of a voyeur, spellbound by the culture in and around the vintage service stations of North America.