Flashbacks
Having the 3 women in my life together for an hour is such a beautiful gift. Betty & I picked Lia up from the airport after an 8 month journey and we met Dana in Eagle Rock where she was showing property. We met in Highland Park at Carrows on York Dr. and drove to a hip café and Bakery, Antigua Bread Bakery Café at 5703 N. Figueroa Street. This is fast up-and-coming hipster neighborhood in N. Los Angeles. Dana drove us past an apartment complex she sold 2 years ago. I remember seeing pictures of an old run down building that she listed and now the new owner has turned it into a clean manicured upgraded charming art-deco looking building in a trendy family oriented neighborhood.
The Antigua Bread Bakery Café is also a hipster joint in a renovated building on Figueroa St. with a notable breakfast menu and great burgers and sandwiches. Lia had the juevos rancheros with rice and beans and the rest of us had the grilled chicken sandwich. The greatest part of this late lunch is the hour we had together visiting for the first time since Dana’s wedding last May. On the way out I saw the green hills across Figueroa and asked out loud to myself, “Is that Elephant Hills?” On our way back up the Glendale Freeway where they finally completed the overpass that was on the cover of the Doobie Brother’s Album “The Captain and Me”, I faced the mountains and asked Lia if she has ever driven up to Mt Wilson? Seeing the hills in Highland Park and the entrance to Angeles Crest Highway and a previous Facebook post asking who remembers the gas station attendant, I got thinking of the times 2 score years ago (40 years) when I got my first job at the Union 76 gas station that was located at Altadena Drive and Washington Blvd. in Pasadena.
In 1972 oil cost $2 a barrel and a gallon of leaded gas cost $0.39. My high school friend Frankman said I should work with him at the station. The job paid $1.70 / hour. I found out that 2 of my other friends that I have known since kindergarten, Glenn L. and John W. also worked there.
The End of Innocence.
I didn’t know how to check the oil, transmission fluid, radiator level or tire pressure. At 16, I didn’t much of anything. The experiences piled up fast with the characters there. The only telephones then were in the house. So when you wanted to know what was happening, you had to go someplace to meet your friends. At that time, the meeting places were the Pasadena high school parking lot and the Union 76 gas station - at night after the boss went home. 2 attendants worked at night to pump gas, clean windshields, mop the shop floor, clean the bathrooms and watch over the joint.
The characters included the owner, Al. He was our parents age and ornery as hell. He endeared all his attendants with the nick-name Barney. At the start of work he might say, “You’re late again Barney. Where the hell have you been?”
At age 16, I made a lot of mistakes and heard, “You fucked up again, didn’t you Barney”
Or, “You did a shitty job cleaning the toilets and mopping the bathrooms last night Barney.”
Or, “This place was a fucking mess this morning, Barney Fife. What the hell did you do here last night?” With my head down, I’d say, “Nothing Al.”
His # 1 side kick that worked during the day was Tim. Tim was twenty-something, and basically a fat slob. He had long greasy hair and chain smoked. The gas pump handles at the time did not have the pressure switch and you could pump the gas out on the ground which was done if the gas tank was full and you wanted to round up to the nearest dime to make the change easier. Tim once threatened to pump gas on anyone who gave him any shit and throw his cigarette on them. He drove to work in a 1948 shit-racer truck with his dog Toby in the back. Tim loved to roll an old tire out back and watch Toby chase it down, growl and chew on it and carry it back to Tim with the tire around his neck.
This gas station was a major hangout for all our friends who wanted to get free work done on their cars and trucks. They knew the boss was gone and they would come in like they owned the place and put their car or truck up on the rack and use the shop tools. And since working on cars and drinking beer went hand in hand, there always seemed to be beer around. Sure there were school nights when we worked on homework when it was slow. But on Friday and Saturday night, it was crazy.
Tim had a friend that just got back from Viet Nam. He was a combat Marine, Al Frye. He had “USMC” tattooed on his forearm, wore his dog tags on a chain around his neck, had long hair and was 6’ 5”, loud and big and strong and carried a 45 under the seat of his car. It was always exciting when Frye was around. He drove into the station screeching and skidding in his supped up 1965 GTO. “Hey man what’s happenin’, want a beer? I need to use the rack for a while and check something on my car.” Someone asked him once about Viet Nam. “Man, we smoked ‘em. We cut ears off the Gooks, dried ‘em and made necklaces out of ‘em. Look, here’s where I got shot.”
At the station on night Al thought he could get the front wheels of his GTO off the ground, like a dragster pulling a wheelie. We all gathered around as he reeved the engine until it screamed and popped the clutch and had us watch to see if the front wheels actually lifted off the ground. “Yeah, sure Al, I think you got air that time”.
My friends Glenn and John W. taught me how to change oil, fix a tire flat and other useful skills. Frankman was also my age and he was the one that the girls came to see. He always seemed to have a girlfriend, even if it was just for one day. I couldn’t believe that a girl would actually seek out this kind of treatment: Come to a gas station and be taken around back to have Frankman’s hand down her pants or be put in the back seat of the car with him and have one of us lift the car up on the rack.
Older guys would come by at night and say, “I used to work here and need to borrow some tools and put my truck up on the rack. Here have a beer.” Chris was a Pollack with a 1963 4-wheel drive Chevy truck. Oh, the truck of any 16 year olds dreams. One night while I was working, Chris worked on his truck and shared a 6-pack of Coors with me. After work he took me 4 wheelin’ in some hills around Los Angeles, he called Elephant Hills. After several beers, I just remember scrambling up some gullies in the hills. All I could see were the stars through the windshield with the truck screaming and mud and grass flying. I think it was the hills around Highland Park.
The social media in N.E. Pasadena in 1972 was the Union 76 gas station on Altadena Drive and Washington Blvd. I always worked Friday and Saturday nights. It seemed to ease the pain of not having a girlfriend. We worked until 10 PM. Our friends would come to get a couple dollars of gas and ask where the parties were, share a beer or get one that we had stacked up in the Coke machine in the lobby. It was party central. We kept track of where the parties were, which ones were bogus or a dud and we would head to the best ones after closing. One cold winter night, I heard of a party at Mount Wilson from someone that came in for gas. The LAPD was having a party at the observatory. My friend Bob just got a new Capri after his VW was stolen and pushed off a cliff in San Gabriel canyon. After too many beers, Terry, Bob and I thought it was a great idea to crash this LAPD party at the top of Mt Wilson. We drove up Angeles Crest highway in a storm. I will never forget hearing The Doobie Brothers “Jesus is Just Alright” taking the winding mountain road up to Mt. Wilson. It started snowing and the road got slick. Bob didn’t EVEN slow down and on a right hand turn and the car went straight and ended up with the bumper on top of the guard rail. We got out of the car in the snow to lift it off the guard rail and looked down a sheer cliff into the abyss. We made it to the Mt Wilson Observatory and saw where the cars were parked. The snow was falling and we opened the door of some building. By this time it must have been midnight and everything was a blur. We 3, 16 year old kids walked into this room with the snow blowing in behind us and the party stopped. Everyone turned to look at us and someone said, “Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?”
We must have looked like Beavis and Butthead and in our deepest adolescent voice said, “We’re LAPD and we’re here to party”. Everyone laughed and someone gave us a beer. I’m not sure how long I was asleep on the table. But somehow I woke up in the morning in my own bed in Sierra Madre.
Tom B. was our ticket to get the beer. He had a full beard at 17. And somehow he got a bad knee and often walked with a cane. He would go into a store and talk to the clerk, say that he just got back from ‘Nam where he got shot in the leg. But it was getting better. We would wait in his parent’s Travel-all and watch him come limping out of the store with his cane in one hand and a case of beer under his other arm.
In 1973, the Arab oil embargo put an end to all the fun. There was not enough gas to even bother being open at night anymore. Glenn got me a job with a contractor he was working for. That is another blog in itself.
