This Has Nothing to do with Anything, and Yet Everything to do with Everything

   In my community there stands a gas station and tire center that has been there since the main road was dirt and owned by one family.  For decades the proprietor, Mr. Buck Addy, (along with a cast of kids, grandkids, and in-laws)  sold gas, fixed cars, and sold tires there.  It's the sort of place that you just take for granted- a throwback to an earlier time. Everybody knew where 'Addys' was. It was, in a lot of ways, the heart of the community and for a gas station it holds a surprising amount of memories for me.  As a teenager I bought Cokes and gas there on my way to someplace else. As a young husband I took our cars there to have repairs done and for 20 years I bought tires exclusively from them. The Addys knew my parents, they knew me, and they knew my kids.

  Mr. Buck was tall and hard-working--generous to a fault. Mrs. Addy ran the business side of things, and I don't know if I've ever known a sharper woman. I suspect she was the reason they didn't go bankrupt as her husband would probably given the store away without her interference. He certainly gave me my fair share of free tows and free labor.

  The shop was plastered with pictures of old cars and grandbabies and a big black and white picture of the Bucks on their wedding day. The cooler was full of Yoo-hoos and RC colas. There was an ice bucket in the front with Cokes.

  Mr. Addy's son worked there--Mr. Stanley. Mr. Stanley was old my entire life, but he could fix anything on a car and I cannot even tell you the times we came in as a young couple with young kids and a car that was on the verge of disaster and  Stanley took care of us.  One time in particular I remember I picked up a car from them , and as I was pulling out of the parking lot, Mr. Buck ran me  down. It turns out there was a part they had pre-emptively purchased but had not installed. I came back inside, and they adjusted my bill.

  Once I had an old beater car ( that I still own) that needed wheel bearings. Mr. Buck looked at it and told me how much it would cost to put in new bearings. I was broke and asked him if it was safe to drive home. He said "Son, I don't even know how you drove it here."  Mr. Stanley got out there and did something that made it drivable for another 2 or 3 years.

  Let me say this as best I know how.  Some people contribute to the world through hard, earnest labor, and in doing so they improve the lives of those they come in contact with. They fix other peoples cars, they put roofs on other peoples houses. They, as Mike Rowe used to say "make civilized life possible for the rest of us". They add value to the world through their skills and labor. They literally build the world, and keep it turning. The Addy family were exactly those people.

  Time rolled on as it tends to do, and Mr. Buck began to 'slip a little', as the old folks would say.  But all he ever knew how to do was work so as his dementia progressed his wife would still bring him to the shop to help keep the routine. He would sit in a chair in the corner, greet people and try to get involved in things he no longer understood. Once he introduced himself to me 3 or 4 times and I had to tell him that he had known me since I was 13 or 14 years old.  Eventually , at 94 or 95, he went the way of all the earth, and his wife ran the shop by herself . Then we didn't see her very much and we saw her daughter a lot more.

  Yesterday I went to buy tires, and everything was different. The daughter had sold the business and it had been radically transformed into a place that didn't sell tires or fix cars, but rather sold lottery tickets and CBD gummies and vapes.  The place was crowded with trinkets and baubles and nonsense.  Strangers stood behind the relocated counter.  I will probably never set foot in that building again, and I was struck with a near-overwhelming sense of melancholy.  I felt like an era had passed.

  I know, I know. I'm a middle-aged guy who is watching the past slip away and I am making a bigger deal out of a gas station than is necessary.  But man do I have some complicated thoughts about all this. I don't even know if I have words for some of these thoughts.

  We did business with the Addys because we knew them.  Our parents had known them. Everybody knew them. We took our cars to them because I knew that Mr. Stanley would keep my family safe and he wouldn't overcharge me. It was a business relationship based on a sense of community and a mutual, though unspoken understanding  and trust.  I don't know that I will ever see that again.  I bought tires, sure--from somebody else.  And they did a good enough job, but it wasn't the same.  

  You know, it's funny. Even the guy I eventually bought tires from had some Addy stories to tell.

 Community is a nebulous concept --a surprisingly fragile thing.  And though we shop at Wal-Mart and we buy some stuff off Amazon, we also know the lady we buy our vegetables from and the guy who installed my A/C went to school with me.  Once that's gone, I'm pretty certain all the vape shops in the world can't replace it.  

One more thing, though.  The reason the daughter sold the business?  She couldn't find or keep good employees.  Think about that. Her parents kept the place open since the late 40s and now she cant find people like her parents to do the work. There are no more Mr. Stanleys. No more Mr. Bucks

  I'm telling you folks, something is changing, and I don't know what it is, but it's significant.