Shooster’s Expanded Gas and Service Station
Apparently, he just made the money in some property deal. Seven thousand dollars in 1933 was an absolute fortune! I was only nine years old. You can imagine my astonishment. Ever since, real estate has always seemed like a good idea to me. On a funnier note, we all wore greasy over- alls. Hanging out of our pockets were cloth rags for checking and changing the oil. Harry once had a mouse run up his leg inside those overalls. He got it out of there, but not before squirming and yelling to high heaven. After that, he wore bicycle clips around the bottom of his pants to keep out any more mice, but he could not keep us from ribbing him about it for years to follow. If you look carefully at the photos from those times, you will see his pants tied at the bottom. We spent endless hours at the station. With a little ingenuity, Harry took empty cans
of oil and tilted them over another can so as to slowly collect the residual oil. Eventually, this became another quart we could sell for the full 15 cents, clearing a profit with no costs. We did lots of odd jobs during those times. For years, we ran ads in the paper selling and installing car heaters and radios. We could do most anything for cars, putting chains on wheels when it snowed or fix flat tires. We even had a special room out back to charge batter- ies, often eight or ten at a time. Anything to make a little extra cash. Cars were nowhere as reliable back then as they are today. Today there are millions of drivers on the road who have never even seen the engine in their own automobile. Eventually, Izzy tired of the station and wanted to do something on his own. Pop took him around to find something, and they settled on a taproom.
Capt. Colin Kelly B -17 Bomber Pilot
Saburo Saki Japanese Flying Ace
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