A Throwback Experience: Jerry Goddard’s Texaco Station

olympia gas station
The Goddards first met in 1999 and have been together ever since.
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By Eric Wilson-Edge

volkswagenWhen was the last time you baked cookies for a gas station attendant?  My guess is never. Getting gas is largely an impersonal affair – you swipe your card, fill the tank and leave. This wasn’t always the case.  Full service stations used to be the norm. Hundreds dotted the landscape around Western Washington. Now, only a few remain.

“People think they’re in Oregon,” says Jerry Goddard, who owns the full service Texaco station near Ralph’s Thriftway on Fourth Avenue. “Oregon doesn’t know how to do it right.  They’re still practicing.”

olympia gas station
Jerry Goddard’s full service station has been in operation since 1967.

Goddard opened the station in 1967. Had he received the raise he wanted, Goddard may have never started his own business. “I was working in a business machines’ firm. I worked there for five years and one day they hired a family member with no training and paid him more.” Goddard asked for a pay increase. The owners offered him an extra nickel an hour. “Had it been a quarter I might have stayed.”

Goddard’s Texaco is very much a family business. His three daughters all worked the pump island during their teenage years. Jerry’s wife, Sherry, runs the office. The pair met in 1999 and have been together even since.

Happenstance helped bring the two together. One of their first encounters involved a flat tire. “I drove in here,” remembers Sherry Goddard. “They jacked it up, put a plug in. It took a few minutes then I was on my way.”

Jerry slides the squeegee across my window. The seventy something still makes his way out to the pump island from time to time.  Goddard likes talking with his customers. He’s made countless friends over the years, some of whom bake him cookies or fruit cake. “I call them my girlfriends,” says Goddard. “About 70 or 80 come in every week.” He pats his stomach. “I’m putting on too much weight.”

The secret to Jerry’s longevity is service. The formula hasn’t changed much in 47 years. “When you see someone pull up, you drop what you’re doing and you wait on the customer, “says Sherry. Waiting on the customer could include washing the windows, putting air in a tire or checking the oil. There’s no additional charge for any of these services.

olympia gas station
The Goddards first met in 1999 and have been together ever since.

Jerry estimates half of the male high school population of the Olympia area has worked for him over the years. Some come back to visit. A few of Jerry’s employees have been with him for more than 20 years.

“There’s some real sweetheart people out there,” comments Goddard.  A lot of those people put their faith in Jerry and Sherry.  Not too long ago a customer got into a little fender bender near the station. “She came in and asked me what to do,” says Goddard.

To say one way of service is better than another is a difficult statement to support. However, it says something that Jerry is still going when so many other full service stations have gone the way of the dinosaur. Makes you think about what separates him and his crew from the others.

Jerry plans on retiring soon. He’s handing over the reins to a current employee. “Working cuts into my fishing schedule,” jokes Goddard. I’m not sure how much time he’ll have. The only thing that scares him about retirement is the ‘honey do’ list waiting for him at home.

 

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