The Corner of Front and Oak Streets

fireworks-2 Originally uploaded by groc.

It's funny how out of the blue something might trigger memories...

I was cruising Flickr member groc's photos when I saw the one at the right. When I was in third or fourth grade, the Maumee Chemical Company, which was located about three blocks from my home and five or so blocks from my school exploded. We felt it at school and had to learn later what caused it. The blast caused windows in our house to crack.

I recall that people were killed, so the next several years, whenever I and/or my friends would walk over the deserted lot where clumps of twisted metal and foundation concrete remained as reminders of the accident, we would wonder if we might be walking over someone's remains. We no doubt thought about ghosts as well. The lot remained abandoned for many, many years (or so it seemed) until possibly about the time I was entering high school. A three-man partnership bought the property and built a gas station/car wash — Big Barney's.

My brother Mike was hired by John, Don & Joe, the owners, and a couple of years later, I joined the crew. I recall wondering at the time if I should be concerned about curses or anything, seeing as how the explosive chemical plant had ostensibly been replaced by... gasoline!!

The gas station never exploded, of course, and I went on to finish my illustrious car wash career without serious incident. Except for having the nozzle slip out of a car's gas tank filler spout and doused me in the eyes. This was back in the day when the filler spouts were in the rear of the car, hidden behind the license plate and attendants still pumped the gas.

I tasted some too. Bleecch!

I must have washed my eyes out with water for an hour or two. Doggie — that burned!

My employment at Big Barney's also made possible my first automobile purchase as I shelled out a thousand bucks for a Silver AMC Gremlin X that Bruce the mechanic (they'd added a used car dealership and body shop by this time) was selling. I wasn't yet eighteen and I didn't have my drivers license yet (long story), so the car sat for several months in the car wash parking lot until I turned eighteen and got my license. The Gremlin served me pretty well for a couple of years until all of a sudden everything went wrong with it at one time.

I then bought my 1975 VW Super Beetle, which I drove for ten or eleven years. Big Barney closed within five years or so of my having left — I don't think the owners really got along all that well.