IT WAS 1950, and after years of working at a local Ford–Mercury dealer—minus time away to serve during World War II—my father built and opened a Texaco service station on State Route 29 in Galway, New York. My dad’s was your typical full-service station of the day. The building was white with a couple of green stripes to go along with Texaco’s corporate colors. It had two work bays in front, one of which had a lift, and another bay in the back perpendicular to the front bays. At first, the station had a two-pump island that was later expanded to three pumps. Two of those pumps were regular (Fire Chief) and one was premium (Sky Chief). Three underground tanks, totaling 6,000 gallons, held the fuel.
I was born in 1957. Since our house was next door, it wasn’t long before I started hanging around the Texaco station. I learned to pump gas when I was about 9 years old and I soon was checking oil, washing windshields, and filling tires with
