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Joined: Oct 2004
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Dad had a Sinclair bulk station and they also delivered a lot of heating oil and clear gas and oils to homes and a lot of diesel fuel to strip mines. I helped unload the semi trailers a few times. They would put a few old truck tires on the ground behind the trailer and we would roll the barrels out the back and let them bounce off the tires to break their fall. Also carried cases of cans and stuff from the truck into the warehouse. The plant was by a creek and in 69 there was a flood. A lot of the cardboard cases got wet and dirty. We cleaned off some of it and threw away some too. A lot of the 50 gallon barrels of oil went floating down the creek. After high school I worked on an oil drilling rig with my brother for a couple months while waiting to go into the Air Force on my delayed enlistment. We would sit a can of soup on the exhaust manifold to warm up for a quick meal and would lean up against a diesel engine to stay somewhat warm in the winter time. One day my jacket started smoking from leaning against the wrong part of the engine. After we hit rock it would take longer between wrenching on a new section of drill pipe. I could catch a quick nap between sections. When it was time to wrench on a new pipe, they would have to lift the pipe string up a bit and the change in noise of the diesel would wake me up. Put on the new section and back to my nap. One day we were drilling away and some of the dirt in the hole caved in and the bit got stuck. We just started to pump in more soap water and air to get it unstuck. The pressure got high enough it blew the drill pipe and bit and mud and rock and water all up out of the hole. Think it was safer in the Air Force than that day on the ol drilling rig...


US Air Force Retired, 1981-2007
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Please - NO offers to Buy or Sell in this forum category

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Pegasus and Old Iron, I'm kicking myself for not putting 'other' in there. I thought I had covered all the bases... blush It shows I have a lot more to learn.

Love the stories, let's hear some more! Don't be shy... LOL

Last edited by Nicole; Wed Jan 18 2012 10:47 AM.
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Probably some of those "firsts" interfered with your cognitive thinking and long term recall. I had a few "firsts" in the early 70's also so maybe I have a little insight. LOL Love the avatar. Dave


Dave Jones
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Hand cranking,diesal in a detriot fork loader 30 minutes before daylight five days a week as I ran one on a concrete yard for 4 years. 16 years of age to 20. Does this count maybe not.
Best I can do. Maybe I missed the boat again.


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When we got bored we shot each other with either the grease gun or the air blower with those hard plastic points that were used with the tubeless tire plugging gun. Another "activity" was charging up a condenser and then throwing it to a friend to catch.(Maybe this should be in the non petro column).Dave


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I grew up in Ventura, and remember,as a kid making my dad stop on the way to Santa Barbara,
so I could get out and watch the pumping units operate.

Graduated from college in 1978, and went to work for Union Oil. Worked in various positions in
California - operations and finance mostly. Did some work in Thailand and the Caspian Sea.
Picked up my first globe in about 1983, but started collecting them in earnest about 10 years ago,
and have about 90 original and 10 pumps. Rescued a few oilfield signs along the way.

Retired from Union in 2005, when Chevron bought them out. Have been working with small producers
since then, mostly in California, but a little mid-continent.

Seems like I've been around oil my whole life, with no complaints.

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From 1968 forward 42 years,I constructed oil and natural gas line from coast to coast and border to border in the U.S.Some jet fuel lines to airports and 3 years on the Trans Alaska oil pipeline.I am totally enjoying my retirement with good health and a wonderful wife.I have been blessed better than I deserve.I really enjoy this site and the thrill of the hunt for the items to add to my collection.
Robert


Robert

Searching For SunRay DX and Diamond Oil Signs
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From about 1980 to about 1985 I worked for a small concrete company. Our main account was with a company that did tank work. During that period there was a big push to replace the steel tanks with fiberglass and install vapor recovery amongst other stuff. We would replace all the concrete-tank pads ,island pads, islands, sidewalks. The prime contractor did all the demo but still I'm sure I passed up some good stuff.

Last edited by JimT; Wed Jan 18 2012 06:14 PM.
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Well, let see... How about growing up in the oil fields of SoCal. Me and my buds learning how to climb derricks and "target" fellow pals driving by on their dirt bikes. Then pumping gas at a Texaco "Star and Bar" while in college..Back in the 70's, oh the joy of pumping a bucks worth of gas for some puke gangbanger! Then 30 years with Chevron, 10 of those in a refinery and the rest of the time visiting refineries telling them "hi, I'm from home office and here to help"!

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Hey Chevroid......I used that same exact "line" for years. I doubt that anyone ever believed it for a second, although I always thought it was true.

Richard

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I pumped gas a few dozen times for a friend working @ the local SHELL station back in the Late 70's while hanging out with him after school. But it wasn't a Job. wink


DOC @ THE AMERICAN GARAGE
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I pumped gas at a Sunoco just off the Mahoning Valley exit of the northeast extension of the Pa turnpike for about 9 months in 1981. It had six gas pumps and two diesel pumps, the gas pumps were the Wayne blending pumps but set up for unleaded. It was full service and you would be rocking and rolling sometimes trying to keep up with everyone. Me and a buddy got robbed at gunpoint one night at shift change, that's probably about the most memorable thing from those days.


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Got my first petro job in 2007. (I'm a youngster ;)) I got a job calibrating modern pumps at current stations. If you go to a Shell, Mobil, Exxon, Sunoco, Admiral, or Meijer in west and mid Michigan, I have calibrated their pumps.

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I started with a gas station a little earlier than most people. My parents purchased a North Star station here in Edmonton, Alberta when I was three in 1955 and moved the family into the adjoining residence, which is just behind the boat in the photo. The family run business always meant a job for my brother and I, working after school until 7:00 pm, Saturdays, and summer holidays. Everybody did their share, no matter how much we protested. Pumping gas, checking the oil, and washing windshields kept me in pocket money and out of most trouble that a teenager would have preferred to be getting into. It was interesting dealing with the public and it offered a continuous automotive show pulling up to the pumps for 15 years. We were a North Star dealer for 5 years and with Shell, who bought the company out, for 10 years until we sold the station in 1970. The building was torn down in the mid 1970s. It took me a couple decades to start appreciating what I had experienced and all that wonderful advertising: signs, racks, cans and pumps, that was once so common and so disposable. I am glad to have had this early life and now can be a 'caretaker' to some of those oil and gas items that have survived. Cheers, Don.

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In the 50's when things were somewhat different with laws of working I had a paper route at 10 years old that I worked into a double route by buying the kid out that was next to mine. I ended up at Tom Hemmens Chevron at Beverly & Rampart after wards to roll up my bags and drink a coke every day about 6:00 and got to know him some. I started to help some filling oil bottles and cleaning the lot and rest rooms. He said I could come down on Saturday's before my route if I wanted to. I eventually got tall enough to clean windshields witout a coke box to stand on and sold the route and started helping after school. Tom taught me a lot about life as well as how to greet people and make change without being fleeced as well as encourageing my interst in cars which have been my lifelong profession.

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