DO YOU REMEMBER…?

My youth holds a lot of good memories for me. I worked at a gas station/automotive repair garage from early sophomore year to after I graduated from college. This was a common job for young men, at least in my group.

I’ve got a few of the stories from that time that might make you smile.

My place was located between Chicago and Addison, IL. Addison was home to Adventureland, a very popular amusement park back in the day. We would regularly get lost Chicagoans asking how to get there. Like any group of people there were good and bad. When people parked out of the way and walked in to ask, or bought gas and asked at the pump, we gladly told them the correct way and all was well. When they stopped at the far pumps and had us walk out to them to do them a favor, without buying anything, it was a different story. In those cases we would give them all kinds of wrong directions. My favorite was to tell them to go a round about way that would take them past a different gas station friends worked at (They would do the same when the idiots went to them first). We would mention their station in the directions, “If you get to the Mobil you’ve gone too far.” Occasionally they would ask at the Mobil and we’d get a call.

On another occasion a customer complained to me that we were charging too much for windshield washer fluid. It was one of those cold, wet, snowy Midwest winter days. Not fun for grunts like me who were busy running out to cars and getting colder and wetter with every customer. The guy didn’t just complain, he yelled that he wanted to talk to the boss and he wanted to talk to him now.

My boss, a big German guy named Werner who fought against The Allies in WWII, didn’t like to be disturbed while he was doing mechanical work in the back so I wasn’t about to bother him. Eventually Werner heard the man, who was getting louder and louder. 

Werner very calmly walked into the gas station portion from the garage. He said, “Did you need something?” The man yelled at him, “You are asking $1.79/gallon for this (or whatever the price was back then)!” As he held it up for Werner to see, like he had broken the case. The man continued, “Jewel is selling it for $1,75!” I expected Werner to explain how we are a small shop and we can’t buy in bulk like these large chains. Instead I heard immediately, and in a very calm, conversational, voice. “Buy it at Jewel then.” The man was taken aback by the comment, but replied quickly, “JEWEL IS OUT OF IT!” Smiling, and speaking with his thick German accent Werner said, “Oh, vee sell it for half zat when vee are out of it.” And he walked back into the garage. I did not get the sale.

   In a “Boys can be stupid” situation, on another cold night with wet snow falling and about 4 inches already on the ground, I did possibly the stupidest thing I have ever done, to date.

Werner’s brother-in-law owned a gas station in the area and called Werner to warn him that he had just been hit by “Quick Change Artists.” Werner warned us that if anyone came by with a large bill and kept asking for different denominations in change for it to call him. 

Later, I was finishing a fill up and the gas shot back out at me. This was not uncommon, but I was wearing layers of thermal clothes so they got temporarily saturated with gasoline. I collected from the customer and went in to make change. My good friend, Frank, who was a workmate there, was standing next to the cash register. I rang the lady up as Frank was lighting a cigarette. He threw his match over my arm to the garbage. The match, as it turned out, was still lit and caused a small tent of flame to erupt on my arm. It was about a quarter inch high and went out right away.

Ben, another friend, came in from assisting a customer and we told him what had happened. He was impressed, but not enough, so Frank and I re-enacted the incident. Frank lit a match. He held it for a moment over my gas soaked thermal sleeve (Anybody see a problem here?). A small flame appeared. That flame, however, suddenly raced up my arm towards my face. My arm was fully engulfed and we could not put it out. I felt the nylon melting into my arm. I was not in a lot of pain, yet, but I was worried the flame would get to my face and hair (Which has since left on its’ own). We called Werner. We were yelling that my arm was on fire and calling for a fire extinguisher. Werner came running out with a large sledge hammer. “Where are they? Where are they?” Werner asked, looking for the quick change artists. He had only heard three teen aged boys yelling and couldn’t make out what we were saying.

Werner was always calm, we weren’t. He looked around, still not sure why we were so upset, “Phil’s on fire.” He finally said, almost conversationally. Then he remarked, still holding the sledge hammer, “I thought it was those thieves.”

By this time I had given up on the fire extinguisher. I ran into the garage area and stuck my arm in the tire trough. It was a half circle made of sheet metal slightly wider than the largest width of car tires. The trough was used to check car tires for leaks and was cleaned only when the water got so dirty it smelled. This water had been changed in the early summer and had about 8 months of service to its’ credit- THE WATER WAS DIRTY! I, however was on fire and wanted to do something about that so, I stuck my arm in without a thought of the infection this was likely to bring on.

The sound my arm made was much like a hot frying pan going into a sink of water. Oh! The relief was unbelievable! I pulled it out right after I realized the water wasn’t sterile. Or clean, or even near any of those things. I looked down at my wrist and saw the sleeve was burned away. Looking again I saw various shades of white ranging from normal to like a bleached white. Beyond that I saw tendons that were moving, and bone.

Werner saw it too. I was not hurting yet and told Werner I thought we could wrap up the arm and I could finish the night. He said I may need to get a shot because my exposed arm was in that dirty water. He then told Frank, out of my earshot, to take me to the hospital and don’t stop for anything.

After Frank ran the first red light I said, “Frank, this doesn’t hurt yet and if you run another light we might not make it at all. I’ll tell you if you need to step on it.” About a mile further down the road, less than a minute the way Frank was driving, I said, “Step on it Frank! My arm just realized I’m burned!” We made the 20 minute trip in near 10. I was in agony when we arrived at the hospital.

The emergency room doctor gave me a shot of morphine, wrapped me up, and sent me home. I was a little surprised, and relieved, that I wasn’t staying the night. As Frank was racing me to the hospital I was thinking, “I could see my bone and tendons!” On the way home from the hospital I was thinking about how good it would be to be home for Thanksgiving. I had a very steady girlfriend and I loved being with her family and, of course, mine.

I went home and almost right to bed. I woke up at about midnight hearing what sounded like meat juices dropping on the hot coals of a bar-b-que. I then realized that my bed sheets were drenched- DID I WET MY BED! Could this night get any worse? Then I realized the water in the bed was not from there. It was from my arm. The bar-b-que sound I was hearing was blisters that had formed bursting and releasing puss. There was so much that I could actually wring the sheets out into a bucket. Well I couldn’t, I only had one arm!

I tried to lift my left arm and the bandages were so filled with puss I couldn’t move it. I had to maneuver around in the bed and slide off so I could carry my dripping arm into my parents room.

My mother screamed, then called our family doctor. He said, “Get him back to the ER I will meet you there.” When we got to the ER we heard him already there yelling at the other doctor. How could you let him got home? What were you thinking?

I missed Thanksgiving. I was in the hospital about a month. Every day my family doctor “DEBRIDED” my arm in the morning and again in the evening. It was torture! At first I thought the burn was really bad pain, then I was rewarded with an example of how things can always get worse. Debriding was much worse, twice a day for almost a month. At least they gave me morphine first. The bad news was it didn’t help, enough.

You guys have any teenage jobs you want to comment on?

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