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.
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