Ding Ding

Yesterday I drove to nearby Royston for a little truck maintenance. My left front tire had been leaking air, and I needed an alignment. Rather than driving into Athens or waiting for my next trip to Atlanta, I decided to look for a local solution. After calling a couple of places, I settled on Carroll’s Quick Lube and Tire Service in Royston, a sweet little town about 12 miles northeast. Heading northeast from here takes you farther away from the expressway, farther away from Atlanta and Athens, and even deeper into the heart of rural living.

Carroll’s Quick Lube and Tire Service is located in an old gas station just before you hit downtown Royston. The old gas pumps, no longer in use, are still in place. As I pulled up under the awning to park by the pumps and go inside, the tires of my truck set off a familiar but long-forgotten sound – the “ding-ding” of the now extinct filling stations of my childhood. Anyone who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s knows what I’m talking about. Gas stations were called filling stations, and you didn’t pump your own gas. When you drove up to the gas pump, your vehicle crossed a cable on the ground that rang a bell to alert the attendant that a customer needed service. “Ding-ding” went the bell, and out came the attendant to fill your tank and wash your windshield. He would even check under the hood for no extra charge. This was before the oil embargo of 1973, and gas prices were less than $0.50 per gallon. Even at that incredibly low retail, there was enough profit in gasoline sales for independent gas station owners to make a living selling gas and providing service at the vehicle for every single customer. If you chose to go inside you could buy some Wrigley’s gum and a Baby Ruth. Or maybe a small bag of salted peanuts and a coca cola in a glass bottle.

I can still picture the filling station where we always purchased our gasoline for the family car, a 1961 black Ford Falcon. I can’t remember the station owner’s name, but I can still see his face. I remember Daddy "rolling down the window" (no automatic windows back then) and telling the attendant to “fill ‘er up.” I also remember the gasoline crisis of the 70's and the change that followed. The Suwannee Swifty, a convenience store, soon opened and provided self-service gasoline at prices that quickly exceeded $0.50 per gallon. Folks worried that prices might someday reach a dollar per gallon, and that fear came true by the time I graduated high school in 1979. By then the competition from self-service outlets had taken a toll on the independent filling station owner. They tried to compete by offering self-service alongside their full-service lanes, but eventually they succumbed to the changing times, and now I can’t think of a single traditional, full-service gas station still in operation. These old buildings have turned into other things. In small towns, they are often vacant, decaying reminders of the way things used to be. In larger towns, they have either been torn down or re-invented. In Decatur I can name three successful restaurants that operate in former filling stations.

I recommend Carroll’s Quick Lube and Tire Service in Royston, if for no other reason, to hear the “ding-ding” of the bell, followed promptly by a smiling attendant asking, “how can I help you, mam?”

While writing this story, I stumbled across a neat website, Milton's Bells where you can order the old fashioned filling station bell for your driveway. Or just click on this link to hear it and step back in time.