In August of 1971 the Phillips 66 Station on East Broadway became Woodruff Brothers 66. The shop equipment and stock were very low, and the gas sales were poor. The jobber at Altus wanted to shut the place down because the business was so bad. If no gas was sold, they didn’t get any rent for the building. But Sleepy had the idea, and he convinced them, "Let us try it one month first". So, "OK". Within a month, Sleepy, myself, and brother, Andy, were opening from 7:00 to 6:00 5 ½ days a week, pumping more gas than the place had in a long while.
We did oil changes, flats at $1.00 for cars and $7.50 for trucks. We sometimes washed 15 cars a day for $2.50 a car. Our two boys, Tony and Dig, helped too. Dig loved to fix flats. We finally bought a new tire machine which made it easier. Tony pumped a lot of gas and cleaned windshields. Elaine was a good sitter for her little brother, Chris, who was only 10 months old. Sometimes we put him in a play pen till one day he took a rod from the side and got out. Then he started going to Granny Woodruffs.
After Andy got married, Barbara helped all day too. Our two families made a good living and saved 2 cents a gallon of all the gas sold. I even fixed a truck flat one day. I just wanted to see if I could. I don’t even know how they do it now, but then you beat the tire off by hand. I got it done and felt like I had put in a day and was ready to go back the next day with my specialty of cleaning cars and pickups. Some were pretty dirty and on some pickups that had metal overhead, I scrubbed the nicotine off...all for the same $2.50. We gradually went up to $5.00. I think we were getting $7.50 when we closed up. Just think, it is $20.00 now. We enjoyed doing the jobs, and it made us feel good when the customer left happy and pleased. Seems like gas was 29 cents a gallon when we stated. Paul Lovelace was a good customer. He would paddle up the driveway on his motor scooter and want "a dime’s worth" of gas. We finally got him to get a quarter’s worth.
Then in 1973 came the gas shortage! The delivery people said the tanks at the refinery were full, but they wouldn’t let it out. So we knew how many gallons we would get each month. We figured how much we could sell each day. We did the labor that came in...that was ours. If we didn’t sell gas, there was no rent to pay, so our jobber made sure we had gas. We even got some that would have gone to other stations in town. That was summertime, so we would have our gas sold before noon and usually labor caught up. So, we went out and chopped cotton for some farmers. I had never gotten to do that so I loved it.
After the shortage was over, we even had night time gas sales while we slept. Travelers used to come through Hollis late at night when everything was closed and need gas. So the police would call us to get them some. Then it was almost every night, so we gave them a key and they did it for us. When we opened up the next morning, we would have a good nights sales in the register. You could trust almost everyone then.
One day really stands out to me. This car pulled in and the man said, "Fill it up". I did and cleaned the windshield. The man handed me a credit card. I said, "YOU are Darrell Royal"! I had always heard of him, but that is how I met him. We met a lot of good people and made a lot of new friends those 5 years we were in business.
Another good customer was Carl Lee Riles. He kept his Monte Carlo clean, full of gas, and oil changed. He was the only black person I knew at that time with a Phillips 66 credit card.
We made enough money that we each got a week vacation each summer. That was something I was not used to. My parents never had one.
Barbara and I were both helping wash cars, so Mary Thomason started helping Larry, and Mary Watson was helping June. We even had the Junior and Senior classes washing cars for their Halloween queen contest. Their candidate usually won.
It must have been near Thanksgiving, the gas was short. The kids were out of school to help us. We limited every sale to $5.00 which was 13.9 gallons. This was quite a sight. Granny Woodruff took some pictures. Cars were lined from the station to the grade school north and to the red light east. We were really busy one day. Roy Allison had something he wanted us to get done for him, so he cleaned windshields to help us. Our newspaper owner was unhappy because he also only got $5.00 worth and, "He was a regular customer". You treat everyone the same.
In 1976 we began to hear rumors that Love’s Country Store was coming to Hollis. Barbara, Andy’s wife, had already taken a job at the nursing home. So I went to work there in July, 1976. We helped the guys after 3 p.m. when we got off. Then we found out the new business was going in across the street east. We decided to sell out. Wayne Hanks and his son-in-law bought the station in August. I don’t remember how long they stayed....not long. It takes a lot of labor and everyone working together and planning it out to make it go. But that is true almost anywhere. Eventually the land and building were sold, the building torn down and new car care and automatic wash put there. Now the automatic part is all that is open.
I don’t remember the price of gas when we closed, but I think it was $.79 or $.89. That was a happy and enjoyable time of our lives.... our kids growing up....all working together. We still do on some things.
