tiltjlp
PN co-founder
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2003
- Messages
- 3,403
- Reaction score
- 145
- Points
- 65
- Favorite Pinball Machine
- Flying Trapeze 1934
The summer of 1959, at the tender age of 12 ½, my parents forced me to abandon the only home I had known, set high atop a hill in Fairmount. When I protested and refused to accompany them and my brother to a new house in the suburb of Delhi Township, my words were met with laughter. I spent our final week in Fairmount asking most every family if I could move in with them. The day that we moved, I vowed that I would never speak to my parents again, a vow I kept until my older brother and I began arguing who would get the bedroom with two windows.
Being younger, I found that I was going to lose most arguments, a fact that pleased my brother. What few victories I had over him came outside our new ranch-style bungalow. Unable to find a new paper route, I began asking the owners of every business in Delhi for any sort of job. The day I came home and announced that I’d been hired at a gas station was my first victory.
My brother had failed to get a job at the same station just a day earlier. He had wanted to pump gas, but since he wasn’t sixteen and old enough to drive, someone else was hired. When he found out that I would be their gas station clown, he was irate, since jobs were few and far between for underage teens.
In my position as a gas station clown, I would wear a full clown costume; big shoes, freight wig, red sponge nose, and a checkered clown suit. I would jump around and lure cars into the station, where, if they bought eight gallons or more of gas, I presented them with a six-bottle carton of soda pop. I worked two hours a day during the week, and six hours on weekends at $1.50 an hour. While that first job only lasted two weeks, I worked as a clown for every new station for nearly three years.
The only reason I was hired at all, I found out later, was that I was too young to have any friends who had driving permits. And I wouldn’t be as likely to pass out soda pop to anyone who had not bought enough gas. One kid, a junior in high school, had given a carton of pop to anyone he knew, in exchange for fifty cents.
After there were no new stations opening, owners would hire me to lure drivers in for special sales, such as $5 off a new battery, coffee and donuts when a new service bay was added, or when those famous price wars began. By then, each station had a different clown suit for me to wear.
For some reason, the owners didn’t mind me working more than one station at a time. Maybe it was because I did a good job getting customers into the stations with my humorous antics. One gimmick I had was to drink from a gas can. Of course, it had never held gasoline, and I drank iced tea, but it sure did get folks wonder- ing enough to pull up to the pumps.
After I grew too old for my clown job, no one took my place. The owners found other ways to promote their businesses and attract new customers. In turn, they gave away candles, Christmas decorations, decks of playing cards, fancy drinking glasses, and even discounts on car repairs. While my career as a gas station clown wasn’t my ticket to fame or fortune, it was fun. It was also one of few jobs I had that I truly enjoyed. I wonder how many youngsters missed out on a chance to be gas station clowns, because of the newer self service idea.
Being younger, I found that I was going to lose most arguments, a fact that pleased my brother. What few victories I had over him came outside our new ranch-style bungalow. Unable to find a new paper route, I began asking the owners of every business in Delhi for any sort of job. The day I came home and announced that I’d been hired at a gas station was my first victory.
My brother had failed to get a job at the same station just a day earlier. He had wanted to pump gas, but since he wasn’t sixteen and old enough to drive, someone else was hired. When he found out that I would be their gas station clown, he was irate, since jobs were few and far between for underage teens.
In my position as a gas station clown, I would wear a full clown costume; big shoes, freight wig, red sponge nose, and a checkered clown suit. I would jump around and lure cars into the station, where, if they bought eight gallons or more of gas, I presented them with a six-bottle carton of soda pop. I worked two hours a day during the week, and six hours on weekends at $1.50 an hour. While that first job only lasted two weeks, I worked as a clown for every new station for nearly three years.
The only reason I was hired at all, I found out later, was that I was too young to have any friends who had driving permits. And I wouldn’t be as likely to pass out soda pop to anyone who had not bought enough gas. One kid, a junior in high school, had given a carton of pop to anyone he knew, in exchange for fifty cents.
After there were no new stations opening, owners would hire me to lure drivers in for special sales, such as $5 off a new battery, coffee and donuts when a new service bay was added, or when those famous price wars began. By then, each station had a different clown suit for me to wear.
For some reason, the owners didn’t mind me working more than one station at a time. Maybe it was because I did a good job getting customers into the stations with my humorous antics. One gimmick I had was to drink from a gas can. Of course, it had never held gasoline, and I drank iced tea, but it sure did get folks wonder- ing enough to pull up to the pumps.
After I grew too old for my clown job, no one took my place. The owners found other ways to promote their businesses and attract new customers. In turn, they gave away candles, Christmas decorations, decks of playing cards, fancy drinking glasses, and even discounts on car repairs. While my career as a gas station clown wasn’t my ticket to fame or fortune, it was fun. It was also one of few jobs I had that I truly enjoyed. I wonder how many youngsters missed out on a chance to be gas station clowns, because of the newer self service idea.
