My dad ran a gas station for over 40 years in a small farm
town named Horton, Kansas. I worked there every summer starting at age 11 until I left home. The station
was kind of a hodgepodge of small buildings that had been connected and added onto
over the years. The newest addition was
a small air conditioned area where people came in to pay their bills and maybe
purchase some refreshments. The most
prominent feature of this room that I recall was an old fashioned red Coca-Cola
pop cooler –the kind where the glass bottles were immersed in about six or 8
inches of ice cold water that continuously circulated through. (This was well
before the advent of aluminum cans.)
The majority of our customers were farmers who had come into
town on some errand and stopped in to pass some time in the cool air. The pop cooler was a popular destination
especially on hot summer days, and it was not unusual for 5 or 6 men to be hanging
around;everyone dressed in their blue denim Sears and Roebuck coveralls, some more worn than others. As a young teenager, one of my jobs was to keep the
cooler full, clear away the empty bottles and candy wrappers, and sweep the concrete floor. It
seemed like people always tracked in a bunch of dirt, and the smokers never
actually hit any of the ashtrays with their ashes, but I got to listen to a lot of different viewpoints.
Some of my fondest memories are of those times when several
people gathered 'round the cooler to gossip, complain, and generally share their views of the
world. Often, somebody learned something from someone, and more than once I
heard people sharing their compassion. In a way, that is the kind of place I
would like this blog to be; that is why I chose to name it after the pop cooler
in my dad’s gas station.
My goal is to share some memories and thoughts and hopefully meet others who care enough to share as well. My Dad passed away and left very little in the way of things to remember him by. I hope this blog lets my kids and grandkids know a little about him, and me, too. Maybe we will all learn something along the way while we are passing some time.
