Pumping Gas on the Cody Road to Yellowstone

A Reminiscence by Phil Roberts

Pumping gas at a filling station was a pretty good job for high school students in those long-ago days before self-serve stations. Brother Steve and I had gas station jobs in high school at Cody in the mid-1960s, working for Bill and Edith Vehnekamp at their Phillips 66 station west of town on the “Cody Road to Yellowstone.” It was the last place to gas up before the 52 miles to the Park. (I read in the Cody Enterprise that Edith just died last month). The Cody Stampede grounds hadn’t yet moved from along Stampede Avenue, about where the library and county complex now stand. The Phillips 66 station was the end of the line. Even Larry Edgar’s Trail Town didn’t exist at the time. It was Cassie’s Supper Club and, a half mile farther, us.

Steve and I spelled each other off in winters during the school year, but frequently worked together during the summers when it would get very busy.   (I got Friday afternoons off in summers to mow the huge yard of the Presbyterian Church for Rev. Buswell)). In the much shorter winter hours, business relied on “local regulars” since the road to Yellowstone would be closed and there was no reason to go beyond Buffalo Bill Dam, a dozen miles west.

Salaries seem meager by today’s standards, but we were hired at 62 cents an hour initially. That changed to a flat $75 a month when our hours started expanding in summer months. Bill and Edith were there only from 8-5—we were on our own from 5 to closing time at 10 and all day on weekends.

Steve didn’t mind having Edith there. She’d spot a car coming in while we were engaged in changing oil or cleaning the toilets and, regardless of the proximity, she’d shout, “Phil, you have a customer!” Bill spent less time at the station because he was frequently away handling his other business as a hunting guide and outfitter. If he was there and Edith wasn’t, the bell would ring through someone driving next to the pumps and he’d shout, “Steve, you’ve got a hot one!” Needless to say, Steve liked it when Edith was supervising.

 I became acquainted with various accents. A Georgia car drove in one day and the driver walked up to me with a watering can, asking if I “could spare some wire.” “What kind do you need?” I asked him. “We have electrical and baling—and I think we could come up with some barbed wire.” He looked at me perplexed, “No! I can take it right out of the tap…” “Oh,” I said. ”You want WATER. Why didn’t you say so?” He muttered something about “dumb cowboys,” filled his jug, and actually gave me a quarter tip before speeding off toward the Park.

We enjoyed colorful local customers. A local regular, Shorty Mullins, practically announced his arrival as he drove his ancient pickup down South Fork hill a mile or so from the station. He’d be driving the whole way down the rather modest incline in 1^st gear, explaining that it gave him “better control” coming down the hill. At least twice a year, he wanted the oil changed. He once explained to brother Steve that we were the ”most accommodating” place in town. Shorty’s wife refused to get out of the vehicle as it was put up on the hoist. “You’re the one place that let’s her do it,” Shorty said, fortunately not telling local officers or the insurance carrier!

She usually ate a sack lunch up there. She had the annoying habit of shouting down from there—as though it was normal conversation. One time, she asked me to take a break from changing the oil to toss her up a Baby Ruth candy bar from the dispensing machine. When Edith came one day and saw Mrs. Mullins up high perched in their pickup, I had to quote her back that “the customer is always right.” Out-of-state tourists could only shake their heads and wonder what kind of a place we were running when Mrs. Mullins, working on a crossword puzzle, would shout down the clue for us to help with particularly hard words.

Speaking of shifting gears, I knew how to drive a stick-shift vehicle, but the big truck with a huge water tank on it posed a challenge. Each week (sometimes twice a week in the summer). Steve and I were to swap the duty of filling the water tank from the city water plant close to the river on the north end of Cody. (The station was outside the city limits—it was long before Walmart or other stores were built out that way). When I drove the water truck, I made it fun—seeing if I could change gears fast enough to raise it on its rear wheels—or least, lay rubber all the way out of the station onto the highway. It was a maneuver that didn’t please the boss who, unbeknownst to me, was watching one morning. I wasn’t fired, but lost the chance to drive the water truck both ways through downtown, my left elbow showing a certain cool detachment as I shifted gears at each stoplight and tried to impress envious onlookers (the young women, anyway). Funny how every experience pays off later on. Who could drive a Marine Corps deuce-and-a-half through the crowded streets of San Diego? Experience only takes you so far. Nervous lieutenants, just like water truck owners, didn’t like the idea of laying rubber with a military vehicle, regardless of how many civilians might be around to impress. My chance of driving stopped with one (partial) trip.

Lots of Bill’s hunting guide friends came in, most happy to talk about their latest close scrape with a grizzly or their latest eight-point buck. Others were outfitters or dude ranch owners who kept us appraised of the best fly-fishing spots along the North Fork or its tributaries. They coaxed us into hiking the back trails without concern about wild animals or sudden weather changes. The encounters had mixed results. Years later, in the Marine Corps, I remembered what a Bill Cody descendant told me about the “Old Scout’s” shooting secret. “Treat the rifle like your arm. When do you sight in when you’re pointing at something?” And, of course, shooting—”take a deep breathe, exhale, and pull the trigger at the end of exhaling.” It worked—got me expert rating and close to being sent to Nam as a sniper. A mixed bag of knowledge, you might say…

While working at the station and finishing high school, Vietnam stayed hot. Both Steve and I readied for the call. Both of us were drafted– Steve ended up in Europe doing top secret crypto; I spent the war on base in San Diego, a continuation of luck that began from even before the days of pumping gas on the Cody Road to Yellowstone. Was it worth missing many of the after-school events? Possibly not, but learning comes bound up in all kinds of packaging.