The
Sunday Stills Challenge this week was history or something over sixty years old. I have lots of old stuff but none of it inspired me. Perhaps it needs to be a photo with a powerful history.
A tiny bit of who I am and what made me an animal person revolves around this sign. Bob and Ruby owned this gas station, my Mother would drive up and Bob would come out and put gas in the car, check the oil and wash the windshield.
You see Bob and I shared a dog, her name was Patsy/Princess. I named her Princess, Bob had named her Patsy. We lived over four miles from this gas station. One day a German Shepherd showed up at our farm. I was forbidden to feed her, so I snuck her food out my bedroom window. I climbed out my window and joined this dog in the grass on summer evenings, I told Princess all of my secrets, and she listened patiently, sometime sighing as she laid her head in my lap. My Mother could not figure out why this dog kept coming back, as she would chase it off. Princess visited off and on all summer, she and I were good friends. She would be with me for a few days and then she would disappear. As it turns out, one day when we stopped for gas at Bobs Texaco Station, she came running out to the car to greet me, licking my face and wagging her tail. Bob was shocked. He had purchased her as a night watch dog, the only problem with his Patsy was that she took off every few days to parts unknown. From then on she was tied up at the station, I visited her..but it just wasn't the same.
This Texaco sign still stands at the old gas station, every time I drive by, I can feel the old ghost of two dear friends..Patsy/Princess and Bob. Ruby is still alive, she always recalls our shared dog story with a smile. To this day, I miss that dog, even though she wasn't mine to miss..we had a connection, a powerful one.
Texaco first put up these signs beginning in 1938:)
