This is part one of a 3073 word short story. I figure that if Facebook limits posts to short segments, I should do the same on this blog. There will be three parts to the story. I hope you enjoy this true story from my early years. I have had this in the works for perhaps a year. I suppose I just didn't want to finish it because it brought back many memories.
Les’s Station
I was just 16, and had been working for a year and a half. My first job at the tamale and chili plant had been ok, but Kenny, the owner, sold the business to Kauffman’s foods in Saint Louis. He secured a job for me when he sold out. The food factory was no fun at all. I washed trucks on the weekends and during the week in the summer I worked in the reefer, a giant refrigerator bigger than a house. I do not remember what all I did in the reefer other than chill and eat a lot of Jell-O cups and whatever else I took a fancy to. I do remember operating a moveable link to make sure the containers of food that came off of the process line and then went down the conveyer into the reefer were switched to another conveyer for loading the trucks instead of clogging and spilling all over the floor. I seem to remember cleaning was involved with a few spills. I didn’t like the potato salad factory although they made an excellent potato salad, but how many cups of potato salad can a young man eat?
I told my Dad I didn’t like working there and a week or two later he told me Les was looking for a driveway man at his gas station and brake service. I jumped at that. It sounded terrific to me. Mom was concerned I was making a mistake leaving Kauffman’s and going into something I knew nothing about. Jobs were difficult to come by for a 16 year old.
It was summer and I was working the midnight shift to seven in the morning, so I left work after an all night shift and went to meet Les at his business. He wasn’t particularly taken with me, but he knew Dad because the trucking company Dad worked for bought gas there and had trucks repaired there when necessary. He knew Dad was a good guy and assumed the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
I started work that morning. I went to Kauffman’s that night and gave a week’s notice. I was in heaven at Les’s station. The first week was rough, working two jobs, but I did it. I liked cars and liked waiting on customers in the driveway, pumping gas and checking under the hood. I talked to people in those days. Most people were nice, except for one old man who came in twice a week, bought just two dollars worth of gas, (about eight gallons) and expected me to wash all his windows, check his oil, radiator and battery level every time. I explained to him that it wasn’t necessary to do this routine twice a week but he had a fit and complained about me to Les, who kindly reminded me that the customer was always right at least as far as I was concerned.
Les taught me how to run the tire machine to remove and return tires to rims and to repair them of course. Tube type tires took more time and were more difficult to repair, not to mention that if you didn’t patch the tube well or didn’t get the inner tube placed correctly it would pinch and cause the tire to lose air in a short time after being replaced on the car. The real fun was repairing truck tires. Commercial truck tires were heavy and they had a split rim made of steel on them so the tire machine was unable to break them down. I had to use a tire tool and a ball peen hammer to wedge in between the split rim and the tire and then lever the tire tool to break the tire bead away from the rim and then pry the tire from the wheel. It was hard work and it took all the strength I had to do it, but again, I loved it. I doubt Les ever made any money on my tire repairs because he paid me a whopping one-dollar an hour, (15 cents less an hour less than I made at the potato salad factory) and it took me longer to repair a tire than he charged to repair it. But at least he didn’t have to fool with tires. Les was in his fifties I think and he had worked that station since he was 16 so he was happy to do as little as he had to. The more I could do, the less he had to do.
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