Fill it up and check my tire pressure.

Fill’er up Joe.
It was a tall clear glass cylinder about two-feet tall and about 15-inches across with lined
markings, Markings representing one gallon each mark. The heavy glass cylinder sat on a round red metal frame with a long handle parallel to the metal and glass tank. If you pump the handle a red liquid or gasoline would rise in the glass tank. You would keep pumping until you achieve the amount of gallons you desired then take the attached hose and nozzle and pump the gas into the tank of your Model A Ford. On the metal base of the pump would be painted on something like, Texaco or Standard or Mobile oil companies.
But now days when pumping gas, it comes from an almost computer -like box you shove your credit card into and you press the touch screen for the amount of gallons you wish. Plus, you get a free video with verbiage and music of the benefits of buying your Shell or Phillips gasoline as you pump gas yourself. All blasted at you whether you wanted to hear or not.
But anyway, if you were born after 1973 you missed full-service gas stations. What’s a full-service gas station you might ask. Well, going back several decades and beyond into the fifties, sixties, and early seventies you could have pulled into a Texaco station, rolling over the bell ringing alert hose, and a uniformed station attendant would rush out to the driver’s side of the car and ask how he could help. Allowing the driver to never have to step out of the vehicle. Most often the driver would say, “fill’er up Charlie.” Or others might say one dollars’ worth of regular please. And back in the late fifties and early 1960s a dollar could easily get you four gallons of the stations best petrol. I remember as a mere teenage lad a gallon of gas costing only 23.9 per gallon.
Then the uniformed attendant would grab the nozzled hose, clearer off the previous purchase, flip a lever to start the pump, poke the nozzle into your tank and set it on continuous fill. Then the handsome lad with orange shop towel hanging from his hip pocket would pop the engine hood of your car and start checking fluid levels. Making sure he checks the oil dip stick for a full level and especially take notice the color of the oil on the stick. If greenish and translucent, he would stick it back in it’s dip stick tube. Then check steering, break, and radiator fluids for proper levels. He might even check water level in your windshield wiper cleaner fluid. And if all looks good, then slam the hood down and proceed to spritz and clean your windshield.
Then take a long air compressed air hose and check your tires pressure. And if that’s not enough some stations would take your car trash and using a Wisk broom, sweep out your front floorboard. And most often just for a dollars’ worth of gasoline. Now, that’s full service.
Now sometimes you would just get a teen boy pump jockey coming to your car or possibly a fully trained mechanic to attend to your car needs. Often you would observe a station attendant in full brown or gray uniform with the brand of gas sewn on his uniform shirt. Such as a red star with a white ‘T’ in the middle or a yellow sea shell. Or just maybe wearing a pair of Levi’s and a plain gray collared work shirt.
Now here is where things changed. Back in 1973 when we lived in Honolulu Hawaii, we often frequented the gas and repair station at JC Penny near us. Gasoline was about 29.9 per gallon back then. Teen boys and girls working at the Penny station with matching shorts and Aloha printed polo shirts would be all over your car lickity split. Filling the tank, checking under the hood, and cleaning the car’s windshield. What great service. They often received handsome tips.
Then doomsday came all of a sudden. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC decided to stop shipping crude oil from the middle east to the United States. Creating an oil embargo and a serious oil shortage. Gas prices went way up, full service went way down, and long lines of cars waited for hours to just get no more than five or ten gallons of gasoline at one visit. In our area we could only buy gas on even numbered days according to the first number on your car tag. It got to the point where I would drive the car to the station the evening before and park in line then the next morning run down to get in line for a few gallons of gas. From that time gas prices kept going up. First to 50-cents a gallon. And later up to a dollar. It must had been more than a year later when the embargo was called off. Never understood the point of the embargo in the first place. But anyway, the middle east oil producers figured out how to jerk we gas guzzling Americans around. Not sure why the big American oil companies imported oil from countries who seemed to hate us. But anyway, this was the end of full service and cheap gasoline. Be sure to bring a shop towel with you to wipe hands after wrestling with the gas pump nozzle and hose. And FYI, Electric vehicles had not been thought of back then.