Stancil’s Store

The first day of summer is coming up quick.  I hope to burn a good amount of gasoline in the engine of my bike this summer.  One way I hope to do that is to visit a lot of roadside abandoned, or repurposed filling stations.  It should be a good opportunity to practice …um…learn photography skills.

I don’t know if it’s the throwback look of my Indian Chief Vintage that makes me want to park it by buildings with some kind of history, or maybe it’s the romantic in me that always imagines the lives that passed through places that were once busy, and now have changed.

More than likely, it’s a leftover desire from me as a kid standing up and grabbing the headrest behind my father as he piloted the Impala down the highway (Yes, I grew up in a world that would give current safety experts .    I had a habit of reading every sign, and asking to stop at every roadside sales pitch.  I was convinced that the “Mystery Hole” did contain unknown treasures.  I needed my picture taken with a real live pirate who just happened to be hanging around miles from any port.  I knew beyond any doubt that the Shell Station with the “Live Rattlesnake Pit” in the back was something out of an Indiana Jones movie (which was even more impressive when you consider there was not yet any such thing as an Indiana Jones movie).

But the Impala rarely stopped, but not because my father was intentionally trying to smash all of my dreams and visions.  When I think about it, if that’s what the desired outcome was, then the quickest way to achieve that would have been to stop at all of them.  No, my father knew that it was rare for any of those places to actually contain the entertainment value they promised.

This summer, I’m going to find a few of the gas stations that didn’t quite make it.  And I’m going to stop and remember them.