Remember when

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Joined
Apr 22, 2014
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1,266
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Location
Massachusetts
My Car
1972 Mustang Mach 1
Do you remember when you could pull into a gas station and you got your oil checked and windshield washed, air in your tires checked and S&H Green stamps? or Blue stamps? All for 39 cents a gallon. Heck I worked for a ARCO station and we even gave away 8x10 color glossies of the Boston Red Sox with a fill up. That's when they were called service stations.

 
oh man 'GAS wars' were awesome for the customer the stations would compete for your returned business.

and they would compete to have the lowest price on fuel until regulations stepped in and forced all stations close to each other to have the same prices.

 
Yeah, I remember once when I pulled in for gas in my 73 Convert and the attendant unscrewed my gas cap and pitched/laid it on my trunk lid. Boy was I pissed.

 
I remember when on one street in Greenfield Ma. we had no less then 12 service stations and that road isn't even 2 miles long. Talk about gas wars.


Do you remember when you could tell what make, model, and year, a car was just by the tail lights at night. We used to play that game.

 
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We had an entire 'BC' comic bowl collection. You got a free bowl with a fill up.

The other day I noticed that the 'air'/'water' station at the local gas station had a VISA sign on it. I guess you can pay with your credit card now. WOW.

 
I remember the efforts made by SERVICE stations to get your business. Wooden crates of pop in bottles cheaper than any grocery store to draw you in. Of course you went back to the same station to get the deposit back on the bottles (or just pick up another case of pop). I got my drivers license on the day the 1973 oil embargo was announced. Overnight the "service" was gone. Two months later we had the 55 MPH limit introduced.

 
Do you remember when you could tell what make, model, and year, a car was just by the tail lights at night. We used to play that game.
Guilty as charged. I thought I was the only one, too. Nobody else I knew could do that.

 
I remember the efforts made by SERVICE stations to get your business. Wooden crates of pop in bottles cheaper than any grocery store to draw you in. Of course you went back to the same station to get the deposit back on the bottles (or just pick up another case of pop). I got my drivers license on the day the 1973 oil embargo was announced. Overnight the "service" was gone. Two months later we had the 55 MPH limit introduced.
yeah - about the same time people were trading off their muscle cars for better gas mileage vehicles - like Datsuns, Toyotas, Hondas and PINTOS! You could buy 1965 Shelbys for $2000 - easy. Boss 429's and other similar muscle cars too. We bought a K code 66 fastback - really nice car for $450. One guy traded us a super nice low mileage 73 Cuda for a 75 Datsun pickup that was kinda plain! Muscle cars were everywhere and very cheap! BTW the Dodge Chrysler Plymouth cars were not NEAR as popular as they are today. Poor fit/finish and the doors felt very cheap when you closed one. And although the starters were pretty good they just sounded 'funny'. People didn't like that back then. ( I digressed... :) )

Gas was just hard to get. I remember pushing cars in line up to the pumps because we had to wait so long to try and fuel up. Some stations only let us get 5 gallons! Sucked.

Ray

 
I've never cleaned out the console in the Tiger. It still has some unused S&H Green Stamps in it, and an unused matchbook with a picture of a Saturn V rocket taking off from the launch pad...

Yep, I can remember my sister and I pestering Mum or Dad to get gas at select gas stations because they advertised toys or gifts for us kids... like some hippie Flower Power stickers... Dad didn't like the Gulf station closest to the house 'cause the hi-test didn't run like Sunoco in his 429SCJ equipped '70-1/2 Falcon 500 Drag Pack car.

 
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Do you remember when you could tell what make, model, and year, a car was just by the tail lights at night. We used to play that game.
Guilty as charged. I thought I was the only one, too. Nobody else I knew could do that.
Haaaa Ha! Oh...the s&H green stamps :udaman: I was a kid but remember it well. man you couldnt LEAVE if the attendent didnt give you the S&H's!!!

So to this day my wife loves to drive the truck and usually I'm tired so I let her chauffer me around. We ride around and I'll say 65 Mustang....69 Impala...blah blah blah. She says "where" oh beside, behind that tree, building what ever. She says how do you do that...and NO you cant have it! :D

 
Loved the green stamps. I got this watch in 1972 for about 13 books. It still works perfectly. Most of the stamps came form bowling. The alley where my YBA league was held had Green Stamp night one a week during the summer. They add three painted pins to the set. If you had a set up where the head pin and number two or three where painted and threw a strike you got 1000 stamps, same if you picked up a split with a painted pin in it.

DSCN6615.jpg

 
fast forward into the 70's... i was an attendent and my favorite lines I heard were:

Hey man gimme .35 worf in dat caddy

Hey mufoka I needs foty cent in dat duce an ah quatah

Hey gimme pack of dem Kool supa long and 35 cent in duh lincoln

good times! I was the ONLY white guy within 5 miles in a black neighborhood.

 
I worked in a Clark Station in 1975, Park Ridge, Illinois (Mrs. Clinton's home town $$$). I sold a lot of gas one dollar at a time. Sold a lot more Marlboros than any other brand.

 
I love these Green stamps stories. I worked at an S&H redemption center my senior year in high school. I put together bikes and moved merchandise in the basement. I set up window displays and anything else the ladies wanted. That was 1973-1974.

 
You mean I can't use the stamps I still have?

Some were talking about the service at the station, wash windshield, check tires and such. We have the one guy in South Africa that is doing the build. In South Africa it is still service stations. They wash all your windows and check anything you want they do get some change as a tip but brings back memories every time I go back there.

David

 
ehhhh I was giving "personal service" up to somewhere around 1974 or5 because there was this HOT (back then we called them FOXY) chick. she came in a sports car....heck if I know what kind maybe a Triumph or MGB..oh MY GAWD she was beautiful. I washed and washed and washed that windshield ....it was the CLEANEST in town!!

hmmm who would think...poor lil bastage working a the gas station would FINALLY land a date with the young lawyer..... but hey I was an up and coming high school drop out making minimum wage but really cute and still had the football player build so UNTIL the engineer showed up....life was GOOD!!!

 
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We had an entire 'BC' comic bowl collection. You got a free bowl with a fill up
Oh, man! I had a BC comic mug. It was white, had the cave man molded into the side with the word "grog" on it. I was probably 10 years old, and it was my favorite thing to drink from. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

 
So let's talk about rotary dial telephones.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/178954691/1970s-brown-itt-desk-phone-vintage?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_vintage-home_decor-mid-other&utm_custom1=cd53d3e1-e88b-4537-b7f0-c06faac67518&kpid=178954691&gclid=CPXThdjQo8UCFQopaQodvgcA_w

just happens this has a 70 thingy on it. Not our 71-3 but close for the conversation. the sound it made as you ran the dial around and then the clack clack clack as it spun back into place. i remember thinking hope this call doesnt have too many 7-8-9's in it.

 
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A party line till about 1963 or 4. The party line was not such a big deal because the cost of using a phone was high enough back then that fewer people spent a lot of time yapping away. Got a push button phone in '76. Word on the street was if you reversed the red and green wires so that it did not ring then the phone company would not know that you had added a phone. Back then you were charged for each telephone hooked up to your house's line.

High numbers on a rotary dial taught you patience.

 
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