A Summer at Hines Truck Stop

 

I saw that they recently tore down the old Hines Truck Stop. It had been derelict for years and it was overdue to be demolished.  I spent a summer working there when I was in high school, I would have been 16. I cleaned the floors and restrooms (Ugh) and was a fuel jockey.  This was back when no one pumped their own fuel and all the gas stations and truck stops were full service.

So the truck stop was situated on Route 40 which at one time was one of the main routes East and West across the country. When interstate 70 was built, that really slowed down the traffic to Hines.  It was about a mile from the interstate, but a new truck stop was built right there at the exit and so there was little incentive to go the extra mile to Hines.  Which was probably why Angelo, the owner, got it for cheap from the Hines family.

Angelo was a character.  He was Sicilian and there was speculation (never proven) that he was with the Mafia.  The Godfather movies had come out around that time, so anyone from Italy or Sicily had to be affiliated with the mob.  He had 2 Doberman Pinschers and I recall one time that he brought them into the kitchen and grabbed a couple of steaks from the walk in cooler and casually tossed them on the floor for them to eat.  If the health inspectors had known about this, they would have had a heart attack.

I can recall that there were some slow shifts where only 10 to a dozen trucks would stop by to fuel up.  But I remember also that some of the drivers would ask me about white crosses (amphetimines), pornographic tapes, etc.  I did not know anything about this stuff and I mentioned it to his son-in-law who helped run the place. He would just brush it off and told me that if anyone asked, I don't know anything.  Somehow they made enough money to keep the doors open is all that I know.

The son in law was always good for a joke and was a prankster.  The Ohio lottery was fairly new and they had scratch offs.  So he got a razor knife and rigged up a ticket to look like a winner. So a regular would come in order like 10 scratch offs.  They would all be losers generally and I would walk up and say I would like to try one - "I have never played the lottery before."  I would pretend to scratch if off and then act all excited when I "won."  It was all fun and games until one of the customers knew my father. My Dad came to the truck stop all excited and I had to sheepishly explain that it was all a prank.

One of my jobs was also to repair truck tires.  Back in those days they had the dangerous split rim tires. You had to inflate them in a steel cage because there was a danger of the split rim popping off and hitting a person. I had no encounters of this sort, but unfortunately this happened to the son in law years after I left.  My understanding was that it hit him in the head and he never was quite right after that.

I did learn the value of getting it right the first time.  It was common for drivers to come in and say," give me $50 of fuel"or sometimes 50 gallons of fuel.  You had to listen and get it right. Of course one day I got it wrong. The driver and Angelo got into an argument about it and the driver would not pay the difference. So the only thing to do was syphon out the diesel from the fuel tank.  Angelo got me a hose and a couple of 5 gallon cans and told me "You messed up, you are going to do this."

I had never syphoned fuel before and I had a hard time getting it started.  So finally I inhaled hard and it came fast! I swallowed some of that diesel and it about turned me green.  We syphoned off the fuel and got the dude on his way.  I was pukey for the next 24 hours and had to work the next day.  But that was the last time I made that mistake.   

And as long as we are on gross topics, there is one last story to relate.  This is back in the day before landfills.  There were dumps scattered around the county and everyone would just dump their trash there.  So every Saturday one of my jobs was to take all the trash that had accumulated during the week into the back of the pick up truck and haul it to the dump and unload it.  It wasn't too bad, it got me out of the truck stop for a bit.

One week the truck broke down and it sat in the hot repair bay for a week waiting for a part - with a week plus of trash in the back.  By the time it was repaired - it was ripe.  As you can imagine there were little white crawly things and the odor was horrendous.  The mechanic must have had a clothes pin on his nose when he finished work on it.  

So unloading that mess was bad enough.  But when I got back Angelo had one more job for me.  The truck stop had these enormous grease pits.  Instead of lifts like you see in some garages, the truck stop had concrete pits where the mechanic stood and worked on the truck above him.  Well the pick up was parked above the last grease pit.  My last task was to get a garden hose and spray all the stray maggots that had fallen into the grease pit down the drain.  Needless to say, I took a long, hot shower when I got home that day.

The truck stop limped along after I left and it finally closed.  It has been empty for decades, it will be interesting to see if a new business goes in there or what will finally happen to the property.

Some final thoughts on Uncle Vaughn

 It has been about 10 years or so since Uncle Vaughn passed away.  By happenstance I stumbled across some notes that were saved at the time of his passing.  I think we put this together to share for the funeral.  I thought that I would post them here for posterity.

Joe’s thoughts on Uncle Vaughn:

He was like Santa Claus in this respect - (Me: Uncle Vaughn - Santa Claus??)  he knew if I had been

naughty or niceHe knew many of the local principals, superintendents, and teachers.  So if I messed up,

he knew about it and let me know.  He always seemed to know what we did.  It was his way of keeping

an eye on us and letting us know that he was watching. That is a part of my childhood that I will miss.

Chelsea said that Uncle Vaughn reminded her of the coach from the Bad News Bears - Walter Matthau -

a curmudgeonly, but loveable guy.  He had that gruff attitude and if he didn’t care for you, he would just

listen to what you said, but not give any real feedback.  But if he liked you, he would give you feedback

and advice. He was a straight shooter and always told you what he thought without trying to cover things

up and making it nice.  

Me: One of my earlier memories is being a batboy for his softball team. And for the longest time Uncle

Vaughn was my supplier of Sports Illustrated magazines - until I went digital.  But that was our common

connection - sports. We talked about the local high school teams and how they were doing.  We discussed

Red’s baseball and Bengals football.  He is one of the few guys that would go to a track meet just to watch. 

I would be covering a meet for the paper and would sometimes see him at the fence and say hi.  He followed

Vanessa’s track/cross country career and went to many of her meets.  I know she appreciated him being there. 

I remember being tickled as a youngster by Uncle Richard when I was growing up.  And now I think I know

why - Uncle Vaughn used to pin him down at times and tickle him mercilessly. Uncle Richard was the youngest

and so he had no one to pick on in turn - that is until I came along!  I also remember the walleye that we got

from uncle Vaughn when he went on fishing trips to the Great Lakes and I remember fishing at the lake when

we were growing up.  

I was grateful that he kept tabs on the kids as they grew up and shared advice.  Sometimes when kids hear

things from another adult they will listen to them instead of their parents - even though we are both saying the s

ame thing.  And just like the kids, I was surprised sometimes by the things that he was able to find out about

them from his contacts at South. 

In many ways he was a very social guy - a member of a lot of clubs and organizations.  But in other ways he

was a very solitary guy.  Looking back, he did the things he wanted to do and he lived his life on his terms. 

There is something to be respected about a man who can do that. 

Little Green Men? Or Wright Patt?

 This would have happened in the late 1970's. My car broke down after dropping off my girlfriend around midnight. This was before the age of cellphones. So I started walking home. I lived out in the country and it was a long hike. I was about 2/3 of the way home and suddenly up in front of me I see an orange light shining down. Like a cone or a spot light. It looks to be a few hundred feet above the road maybe a half mile away and is moving slowly my direction as though it was following the road. I don't hear any engines - no sound at all.

I stop and it is getting closer. So at this point I am getting nervous. There is enough moonlight where I can see a telephone pole so I jump down in the ditch and go to hide behind it. The object stops - almost like it had just spotted me. The orange light turns off and it suddenly starts flashing red blue green colors. But it is stationary and has stopped moving.

It darts off to the North and goes like a mile or two and is now a little higher in the sky. I see two other flashing lights with the same red blue green colors flashing and they are at the same height and equal spacing apart. Suddenly they zoom up and out of sight.

To this day I do not know if I saw something extra terrestrial - the last spot that I saw them would have put them close to a power company sub station. Or maybe something the military was working with - I am not far from Wright Patterson Air Force base. But it was definitely something odd and to me at least, unexplainable.