Gas stations - Remember when …

When I started driving gas was around $1 a gallon. A local gocery chain that had a filling station would have a gas sale once a month and it'd only be .75. My friends and I would drive around all day to run down our tanks and then fill up before they closed. I had a little Honda Accord with maybe a 12 gallon tank, was sooooo cheap to fill up.

Self service was unheard of and when it first came out we didn't use it, because we didn't trust it. Later I learned to do self service. We always checked our own oil back then. If necessary we filled up our oil. We changed our own tires, too. If you had a flat, you pulled over and changed your tire. That was when the dinosaurs took over.

It was around a dollar when I started driving. I don't really remember what it was when I was a kid.

I do remember when we moved to St. Louis in the late 90s, gas was 69 cents a gallon. I could fill up my car for less than 10 bucks. It was awesome! That is the cheapest I remember it ever being.

I think I can remember gas being about .86-.90 gallon in the late 80s. There were a few full service stations left but not many. Maybe one for every suburb. I used those sometimes. I mostly pumped my own gas. We would usually get gas at the Quik Trip (QT) and fill up our Squart bottles with Coke.

I never changed my own tire. My dad was not a car guy so basically whatever I needed done it had to be done at the mechanic shop. I "know" how to change a tire if I had too... My husband is a car guy and showed me the basics.. and I did it once while he watched. The one time I had to change a tire the lug nuts wouldn't budge so I couldn't change it anyways. And it was in the middle of the night and raining.. lol.

That's pretty dang cheap for the late 90s!!! 

i still remember gas when it was $1-something a gallon.  hard to wrap my head around that now.

I grew up in a college town. About 2 miles from the college campus and about 1 mile from the high school campu was a gas station/CD shop. Gas was usually 99 cents per gallon and with a fill up of 10 gallons you got to choose a free CD.

I remember .35 a gallon when I got my first car.  I also remember the gas shortage where we had to line up for couple of hours to get gas.  I was really late for work at the boutique store I worked at because I was stuck in the gas line.  When I got there my boss was mad.  I explained I was stuck in a gas line and the way they were snaking around, I couldn't get out.  He immediately understood.

I also remember my dad's friend owned a gas station.  He was warring with the station across the street from his business.  Dad asked me to go there to serve free hotdogs and soda to the customers.  This was in the days of hot pants, so of course I looked a bit slutty I guess.  No more so than any other teen my age and from my area, but the men were all revved up about it, which was the point.  Looking back at it, it was rather weird.  

Although my dad remained there with me at the station in case a customer got out of line.  I served hotdogs for a few hours along with another couple of girls in their hot pants outfits.  We had the customers lined up for a couple of blocks and the gas station across the street was empty.  One of the girls commented that the people must be really hungry for a free hotdog to wait in the lines so long.  The other girl and I exchanged looks like "Does she not realize WE are the bait here?"  

Mom wasn't happy when she found out where I had been all day until I told her that Dad remained at the station the entire time just sitting in a chair and watching over all the girls.  Mom and I did laugh at that too though.  Was he watching out over our safety or just watching out at all of us young girls??? There was only one time that he got up from his chair and went over to tell a customer to move along.  He had been talking to the ditzy girl for a bit too long and Dad got nervous.  Ahh, the 70s.

.99$ is the lowest I remember.

I remember once going in and giving them $10. When I went back out to pump my gas, it was too much for the tank. It was before the auto stop hoses and gas came spilling out of my car. This was probably 1985.

When I first learned to drive in the late 70s, the gas pump price meter only had two digits, so they only went up to $.99 per gallon. When gas went over $1.00 per gallon, the pumps had to add that third digit to the meter. Until then, gas stations started charging per 1/2 gallon of gas. You had to double the price on the pump to pay. My friend worked at the gas station, and people used to get really annoyed at him when he'd do the math in his head. I always tried to fill up to an even price to make it easier to calculate!

I was in my third year of college when gas went to $1.00 a gallon. I remember it vividly because I lived at home my first two years and attended the local community college and my parents paid for my gas so I didn't notice (or care) what the gas prices were but then I moved to Seattle and was shocked at the "big city" prices because I had to pay for my own gas then!

In the mid- to late-80s, I remember paying $.75-.85 per gallon. I remember thinking how cheap it was after paying much higher prices when I started college in the early 1980s. I drove a fuel-efficient car, and I remember driving from Morgantown to South Carolina round trip for about $40 or so, I think.

I remember back in the days of the old full-service stations, we drove across a rubber hose that caused a bell to ring, and that is what brought the station attendant out to pump the gas.

and I was curious and just came across this! Remember the Arco station Noah's ark? We all collected the pieces and traded with the neighbor kids..

well shoot it won't let me link the picture but it's all over if you google it

I love reading your stories, Lexica!!  they make me smile.