One of the nice things about this little town is that it has retained some nuggets of the past. We have several of the big fast-food chains now, forging ahead on the cutting edge of burgers and yuppie salads. But we also have Nelda’s diner on the courthouse square, where you can get a Blue-Plate special or a respectable cup of coffee (no latte-mocha-cappumegaspresso) or a real vanilla Coke, and some leisurely conversation as the cars and pedestrians go by.

We have the big, brightly-lit fueling centers where you can fill your tank and get a 96-ounce Bladder-Buster soda in clean, consumer-enabling surroundings. But on the corner of State and Main, we still have, in the twenty-first century, not one but two 1950s-style gas stations. In the 1950s and most of the 1960s, people got gasoline at places called “filling stations,” or “gas stations”. These were run by men named Ernie or Joe or Pete, and when you said “Fill ‘er up,” chances were very good that you said it to Ernie or Joe or Pete in person. Your tank of gas came with a complimentary check of your oil, tires, radiator, battery, fan belt, wipers, and your own general well-being. You got your  car windows cleaned, and a little local news. You could get a flat tire patched for a couple of dollars, or your car washed for a couple more. These places are now pretty much extinct, and the men who checked your oil have gone away.

But on the northwest corner of State and Main still sits Bud’s 66 (it was originally a Phillips 66 station, but now just retains the 66 for the sake of familiarity), and on the southeast corner stands Jake’s Texaco. And despite the march of time rampant consumerism, these filling stations are still the real thing. The gas pumps will not read your credit card or transmit your voice to a faceless cashier, but you can get a flat fixed or your radiator flushed or a muffler installed. Bud will mount your new set of tires and spin-balance them to perfection. Jake deals a bit more in car washes, including polish and wax and interior detailing. The competition is quiet but intense between these two, and it’s said you can tell something about the local citizenry by whether they prefer Jake’s or Bud’s.

As for me, I tend toward Bud’s, and that’s where I was on a particular Thursday, having my tires rotated. This is not really a lengthy process, but I like to linger and chat a bit, and Bud is usually not opposed to conversation. On the other hand, he has become increasingly hard of hearing in recent years, so it can be a bit of an effort. Anyway, I was quite relaxed on the tall stool between the lube bay and the pop machine, watching the slow parade of life down State Street. Bud was spinning on the last lug-nuts when the mayor, Lester Peek pulled into the drive in his convertible, the top down to take advantage of the warm weather. His wife Bunny was in the passenger seat.

Bunny is a rather attractive woman some twenty years younger than Lester; blondish, nicely put together if not quite voluptuous. Friendly but not chatty, she has a soft voice with that quirk of speech that makes Rs sound a bit W-ish. And yes, Bunny is her actual, legal name.

As the car rolled to a stop, Bud came shuffling out, wiping his hands on a red cotton rag as he came.

“Howdy folks! Fill ‘er up today?”

I’ve come to hear those two phrases as a kind of liturgy, a bit like the Episcopalians’ greeting and invitation to prayer, “The Lord be with you!” Bud is not a believer or a churchgoer, but he has a ministry of sorts. His gentle words and kind attention to his customers have a way of making this little corner of the world a little more pleasant.

Instead of “And also with you,” Lester Peek replied “That’s the ticket, Bud, fill up this old gas-hog.”

As the tank slowly filled, Bud attended to the windshield with a sponge and chamois, scrubbing away at a couple of stuck-on bugs. Bunny smiled at him, opened her door and said “Hey, Bud. Mind if I borrow your restroom?”

The poor man told me later, with much anguish, that it was a bad combination of his slight hearing loss and Bunny’s lisp. He was sure she had not said “restroom”, but “whisk broom”; he’d though she wanted to tidy up the car’s interior a bit. Bless, his heart, he’s always eager to be helpful, to go a little further to satisfy the customer. And to his credit, I heard what she said, and it did sound rather like “west womb” to me. Not quite “whisk broom,” but it certainly left some room for interpretation.

Bunny Peek was not aware of Bud’s hearing problem (and might even have denied her own tendency to skew the native tongue). So it’s understandable that she was taken aback when, in response to her request to use the restroom, Bud reached for the hose hanging on the wall near the office door, pulled it toward her and said “You’re welcome to use the vacuum. Would you like me to do it for you?”