Tonight I stumbled on one of the explanations for why our younger generation has lost all of its values, many of which it never had. Thinking it over, I think there's a definite connection.
When I was a kid, the Standard station was the Standard station forever, the DX station the same, the Mobil station, etc. You went by them when you were a newborn and you went by them when you graduated from high school. It was a life you could depend on.
I got to thinking about this tonight when I was in my old hometown, and a lot of the gas stations I saw were different than they used to be. Some of them were even closed! I was driving by, and this one was some crazy off brand, some local brand, and this one was something new that we didn't even have when I was a kid.
As for Phillips 66, this has to be the most gypsy gas station of all. Because they come and go with great regularity. You just get used to be place being a Phillips 66 station and invariably it will soon be something else. I heard one of the old time gas station managers ruing this one day, complaining that Phillips 66 wanted him to put in a $75,000 automatic credit card reader and he just couldn't swing it. So he became Pop's Gas Station (or something).
The big boys up at the top are pulling the strings. And I would guess the sign dealers are in on the scheme somehow too, because then the owners, who probably change too when a million dreams are shattered, have to constantly be shelling out for a new sign. And by the way, whatever happened to the Shell station?
I think it has to do with the failure of values because the younger generation hasn't got gas stations that stay put. And a lot of our mental stability in the United States is related to the car and that which makes the car go, what the Europeans call "petrol" but what we rightly call "gas."
So, come on, gas companies. Get your act together. If you're going to build a gas station, how about staying there for the long haul! If you can't make a go of it, just don't bother in the first place.
