About Filling Station Dogs and Filling Station Bands

There never has been any love lost between me and Opera singers. I've always feared that high decibel bellowing and screeching could damage my genitals.

But in fairness to you who believe in culture at any price, I must admit the second most awful musical sound I ever encountered was the old Filling Station Band. Not one of those musicians could finish a song he started singing without forgetting the words. They would just fade out, making sounds like they were chewing their tongues. To cover up their mistake, they would hurriedly tune their instrument. Or, if it made them mad they would kick at the nearest dog--as if that had anything to do with them messing up. Filling station prodigies act funny when they mess up and lose face.

The smaller, quicker dogs would stretch out by the soda water box where it was cool and out of reach of the musicians. The hounds who were bad about howling and had learned their lesson would lie in the middle of the drive-way in a near coma. Cars had to straddle them to get to the pumps. This made the dogs a filthy, greasy black from the crankcase drippings and the car's greasy undercarriage.

Once in a while one would yelp when a car with a leaking radiator drove over him and spewed him with hot water. Some days the filling station owner would get up on the wrong side of the bed.

"I'm sick to death of all these hounds," he would scream. "Let's can 'em."

Tieing cans to their tails would get rid of them for at least two days. Soon enough they would return. Slinking around the outskirts of the shade of the driveway canopy; cowering and walking like they were sore. They would barely wag their tails, and then only out at the very tip. Somebody would get to feeling sorry for them and say something nice. Then they wagged all over.

The men would really get after the dogs when they howled along with the singing. Nothing in the world can throw a man off key any more than he already is like a filling station dog howling in his ear.

Any filling station band worth its salt could play five or six songs right through to the end. They could start but not finish over two hundred. Now that was only true when all the chords were G, C and F. These guys couldn't handle any tricky stuff like the chords not appearing in that order. The tricky stuff brought frowns from the drinking musicians. They seemed to have a hard time not losing their place when they were not playing.

Sometimes they would get to fussing about each others ability, or lack thereof. These disputes would bring on pouts that would last for up to thirty minutes. Or, the time it took to pass their bottle around, and chase it with a Cream Soda--which ever came first. After the bottle had made a few too many passes, there would be a some shoving and threats.

"I'll never play with you bastards again," someone would say.

Soon they would stagger into the early dusk knowing full well they would all gather again next Saturday go through the same ceremony.

After all that, it still beats Opera. I bet a filling station dog wouldn't howl along to Opera.