Lessons in life

There it is…. the gas pump on the left.

Someone posted this photo on the Portales, New Mexico, FaceBook group site and it brought back a flood of memories of that gas station, and even that pump there on the left:

When I got out of the army July 1965, I went to work a while for Abe Ribble at his readymix company on the Lovington highway….

One of my jobs was to take the deposits down to the bank, park outside the door with the engine left running, and quickly go into the bank to drop off the deposits. This was the way Abe demonstrated he wanted it done my first day on the job.

The second week on the job I made the deposit, then came out and the car was gone. I was craning my neck staring down the street when an old man leaning against the building asked, “Are you looking for Abe’s car?”  Portales was a small town and everyone knew Abe Ribble [and everyone else in town, and their cars.]

“Yeah, it was right here.” Me indicating the vacant pull-in.

“It headed off in reverse up 2nd Street and cut into the Gulf station. Knocked down a gas pump and stopped on top of it.” He pointed, and there it was, gasoline flooding the tarmac underneath it.

I figured that was the end of me working for Abe Ribble.   But in fact, when I told Abe what happened he couldn’t quit laughing. I’ve been intending to get that fixed,” He chuckled. “I guess I waited a bit too long.”

Seems that car had been slipping out of the Park position and heading off on its own missions for some while, but it never got around to hitting anything important before.

Old Jules