We all have our favorite business places to visit. They know their stuff, they provide great service, and they have really nice people working for them. Top tier places for me are H & L Produce/Tacoma Boys, Pacific Grill, and the Shell Service Station on North Stevens in Tacoma. For keeping me on the road, I love Shell.
The Shell service station is on a busy North end intersection: Domino’s Pizza to the north, a convenience store and gas station kitty-corner, and a locksmith to the east. I don’t know his last name, but Frank has helped me out numerous times. I usually pay the very, very fair prices for service and then deliver home-made cookies as a giant thank you. My wife Peggy bakes the cookies.
We visited my cousin for dinner a little over a week ago. She came out of her condo and showed me where to park. When I got out of my car she mentioned that my left low-beam light was out. We came home via Steilacoom and University Place because there was less traffic to deal with. As soon as we arrived home, I went to my computer and checked out the replacement bulb and purchased it the next day. After I checked the bulbs I had gone to YouTube to see what was involved in replacing the bulb. It looked like a piece of cake. The piece of cake however disappeared once my meaty paws came into play.
The following morning I dropped Peg off for her conditioning class and visited Frank. I watched him as he worked his hands down to the bulb and connector and replaced the bulb which lit up immediately. Next Frank removed a big black box with a filter in it, which allowed him to have greater access. Within minutes everything was back to normal. The charge was less than $25 and I was back on the road and picked up Peg right on time.
Sunday while I yelled and moaned over the Seahawks performance Peg baked “rag muffins.” Rag muffins are made with biscuit dough cut into strips with sugar and cinnamon and butter rolled into pinwheel shapes and then baked. Hot rag muffins with a little more butter are wonderful snacks or dessert. My grandmother passed the recipe down to my mother who passed it down to Peg, who passed it down to our daughter, Andi. Christmas time is baking and sharing time. If you get your own pan of rag muffins you know you’ve done well for the year.
Again I dropped Peg off for conditioning and went directly to the Shell station. I found Frank working on a pick-up truck for a customer. I presented him with his own batch of rag muffins and suggested a cup of coffee and a couple muffins he would be in heaven.
Shell Service Station – 2518 N Stevens Street – 253-759-7021
I grew up in that North End neighborhood, still own view property there. It has been my impression for some 60 years that they charge too much. Once in a while I make contact to check prices to see if I should change my mind, but am dissapointed. When I drive past and see the vehicles waiting on repair, I think to myself the owners must have more money than brains. But then I am a DIY type and have little use for mechanics, and find I must become my own expert as the quality of mechanical knowlege and skill has declined significantly.
Dear P,
I know their gas is expensive, but I would trade there for than at least every once in a while, if it were not for the fact that we buy at Safeway as does the family of our eldest son, so every once in a while we end up getting thirty cents off a gallon gas from reward points.
The charges we’ve paid at the Shell station seem miniscule to what we have paid earlier. Earlier in life I did as much work on my car as I could do, but as car manufactures have added more gizmos and electronics and stuffed them into compacted compartments I have utilized the Shell station and Frank as a godsend. The twenty-four and change was well worth charge. My Volvo has a rear light problem, which I periodically have to adjust the individual bulbs. I can do it, but it is annoying. So, I asked Frank if he could fix the problem. He told me what I already knew. New panels would probably run hundreds of dollars for both sides. He suggested adding a little solder to each bulb to give it a tighter fit. With the cost of bulbs and adding the solder my cost would be about $35 per panel. After the holidays I will schedule the work. I would have put it off, but I was stopped by the police yesterday . . . one of my stop lights wasn’t working. Today I will adjust the bulb and remind myself in my journal to schedule Shell for the new bulb treatment. $70 and some cookies, or brownies, or rag muffins seems like a super deal to me.
I like a little professional help when I need it and can afford it . . . except when people suggest I need to make some mental adjustments.
Thanks for writing, I always enjoy your comments.
Don
I agree that H&L is top tier a and one of my favorite places. I was also curious about you ragamuffins since I knew the term from my early days in NYC as beggar children. Two Irish families in my neighborhood sent their oldest boys out dressed as beggars going door to door looking for money or treats around Thanksgiving. I never knew more than that. Turns out the term has a history going back to the 14 the century associated with the devil or evil person which later became a beggar or unkempt person. How that turned into a version of cinnamon rolls you are familiar with is not mentioned. I know cinnamon rolls as a yeast bread treat. Do you know the link to the term and the bakery version? Whatever, they sound quick and good. Yum
Joan,
Thanks for reading and commenting.
I looked up the original term:
Where did the term ragamuffin come from?
Its origin dates back to the late 14th century, when Ragamoffyn was used as the name of a demon in a poem titled Piers Plowman. The “raga” part of the word most likely comes from the Middle English “ragge,” which means rag.
I’m pretty sure that rag muffins come from the Great Depression. Using no yeast, but rug muffins are easy and cheap to make. My father worked his way on his own through high school. He talked about a treat for him was a glass of milk with bread in it and a little sugar. I’m pretty sure that would have been a whole meal for him. His parents divorced and he rented a room from his aunt. It was tough going growing up during the depression . . . He probably couldn’t have afforded rag muffins. For us they are a simple treat, but it’s a great reminder of where they probably came from.
Thanks for sharing.
Don
That’s really interesting as well. So much came out of the Depression era and I think of Charles Dicken’s characters in England as similar. I also find the terms used in various periods of time for the same thing both interesting and amusing. One such name for a game I knew as a child using chestnuts on the end of a string was called “knockers” in England and there were competitions. Who could break the other chestnuts by snapping the the string hitting the other persons chestnut. We knew a man who actually was a champion at it. In my time in during the 40s we played the same game but it had no specific name that I recall. The Irish and British brought the game to Brooklyn and it migrated to the rest of the City.
Joan,
I don’t know much about knockers, but when I was president of the Tacoma Jaycees in the 1970s we ran several projects encouraging people to come to downtown Tacoma. We offered roasted chestnuts one the Broadway Mall. It was so successful we ran it the next year as well.
Don
p.s. The story is an old chestnut.
D