I made sure that I took almost my full hour of lunch at a local diner down the street, leaving within 5 minutes to spare before it was time to clock back in.  I tried not to spend more than $1.35 at lunch if I could since that is what I made per hour that summer, but then that made no sense either if you think about it.  I think that may have bought me a hamburger and coke, possibly fries. So I was heading down the road at a pretty quick pace, glancing at my watch and proudly wearing my pale blue uniform shirt emblazoned with the STANDARD OIL COMPANY logo above the pocket that held my plastic pocket protector, holding my trusty tire gauge and of course a pen or two.

“Hey man, gimme a square!”

He looked like a two legged Sequoia, completely obstructing the sidewalk in front of me.  “Sorry man”, I said. “I ain’t got none.”  After I said that so quickly I was shocked how easily I blurted out that hillbilly slang, and to what purpose, I’m not sure.  But I said it.

“C’mon man.  Y’all pump gas and even a baby with crap in his pants knows y’all light’em up all over the place and flick’em wherever you want even when you pumps gas.”

The talking Sequoia had a decent point, I guess. My fellow pump jockeys all smoked heavy and when they weren’t smoking they were chewing and spitting with alacrity.  For the most part the gas station uniform with the Standard Oil emblem was definitely cool, and I was sure my friends would be jealous of me if they ever saw me in it, but I’m not sure they ever did. Not sure many had those kind of jobs at that age actually.   But now, that uniform was a curse because of a reputation that was well known in the world to all except me. I quickly looked at my watch and realized I was going to be late if I didn’t start moving, and I’d be in trouble with the boss, but more importantly, I knew that at the age of 14, death was near, or if not death, at least a lot of pain. I thought about how they say your life flashes before your eyes like a movie before death, but I realized that I didn’t have much life yet to take a movie of, and the flash would be more like a two minute movie trailer.  I’d hoped there was at least a nice fireworks show on the beach or something.

“Sorry man, I’m late got to go.”  I knew if he took a swing at me for my lack of cigarettes and he missed, he’d never catch me if I accelerated, and so I sprinted a quarter mile faster than I could’ve at a track meet.

So, the tree didn’t kill me and I was able to complete my afternoon shift, get on my bike and ride about 12 miles home and look forward later to experiencing some new and completely different pump jockey learning experiences that will soon follow.

SRC