(AVA, August 28, 1985)
A reminiscing Valley resident was once overheard to say, “When I first came here in 1960, it seemed to me there were only two places I was assured of a warm and friendly welcome. One was at the old Tindall Market. Alice Tindall cashed a check for me the first day I was here and volunteered to help me look for housing. The other place where a stranger was certain to be genuinely welcomed was at Jeff and Carolyn Short’s service station. I’ve been buying gas and tires from them ever since.”
That sentiment has been expressed by many new arrivals to the Valley and is been often and unanimously endorsed by the many persons born and raised in Anderson Valley. In a small community such a reputation is not only enviable but nearly impossible to achieve. But the Shorts, Jeff and Carolyn, are the proverbial couple about whom you will never hear a disparaging word. They have a rare, instinctive kindness and generosity that other Mom and Pop businesses would certainly profit from if such virtues were somehow transferrable.
Jeff and Carolyn Short are the undisputed champs of the Anderson Valley Service Station business, a championship they’ve achieved by simply out-working and out-servicing all competitors since they took over their present location in December of 1962.
“When we took over the station in 1962, there had been eight previous owners. We had one bay and no canopy. Right next door where the fire station is now, there was a Shell Station. Down the street between The Lodge and Seconds To Go there was a Chevron Station. There was plenty of competition,” Jeff neatly capsulizes, with typical modesty, what had to have been a grueling 25 years. The Shorts not only operated their station for long hours each day, but for five years sold gas wholesale to local ranchers and loggers. Between pumping gas, repairing cars, responding to emergencies at all hours of the day and night at the request of stranded or needy customers, both Jeff and Carolyn drove a big fuel delivery truck all over the Valley to the homes and work sites of wholesale fuel purchasers.
As if this regimen weren’t eventful enough, Jeff volunteered to drive the old Valley ambulance in the days before there was compensation. “Bill West, Carl Kinion and me went out all hours of the day and night. I was with the ambulance for 14 years. The ambulance used to be parked right here at the station.”
Jeff explains that he had come out to Vallejo in the early 40s to go to work at the Mare Island Shipyards in Vallejo but, because he was only 15, he was too young to get on there. “In the old country, back in Arkansas, I grew up in the same general area as the Summits, the Waggoners and the Willis Tuckers. That’s around Mount Ida and Glenwood, Arkansas, about 30 minutes from Hot Springs. In Vallejo, I worked as an iceman, delivering ice for the old-fashioned ice boxes everybody had then. From there I was inducted into the Army at the base at Beale (now Beale Air Force Base), up near Yuba City. Delivering ice in those days got pretty interesting, I can tell you with all those young wives left without husbands who were off to the war.”
Jeff grins impishly, before continuing his story, “I got out of the Army in 1945 after spending most of my time in Manila in the Philippines. I went home to Arkansas to work in a gas station 22 miles from where I lived. I hitched a ride every day with Jigs and Redman. Twenty-two miles comin’ and twenty-two miles goin’. My dad was Marshall down there in those days.”
“We met in Arkansas. I was a little bit suspicious of Jeff at first. But when we got to know each other, it wasn’t long before we decided to get married,” said Carolyn Short in response to a question as to how the popular Boonville couple had first met. “I lived about seven miles from Jeff. He was in and out of the area anyhow because he had come out to California to work when he was 15. I didn’t know him until he started showing up at my school to watch me play basketball.
“Love at first sight,” confirms Jeff. “I had to give nine other girls rides home from basketball games until I could get alone with Carolyn. Carolyn was a good basketball player, too, I can tell you that, but I sure had to do a lot of drivin’ around her friends to get to know her.”
Jeff continued his and Carolyn’s story by describing their lives as newlyweds in Benecia where they settled briefly after the war.
“I did a bunch of different things around Vallejo before I heard about logging over in Mendocino County. There was lots of work in the woods around here then. There were mills everywhere. We came over here in 1950. When we got to the top of the Ukiah hill, I said, ‘What in the hell are we doing here?’ I drove a logging truck from 1950 until I bought the station in 1962.”
And Carolyn Short? “I worked as a bookkeeper in the mills. I told Jeff I didn’t think we should buy the station because I knew there had been eight other operators before us. I didn’t know if we could make it or not. It’s been hard work, but here we are. We raised our son, Jimmy, right here in Boonville. He loved it here, wouldn’t let us leave. Jimmy was born in 1956. He works over in Ukiah for the WestAmerica Bank.”
Understanding how hard they work, as one seldom passes the busy station at the intersection of Highway 128 and Haehl Lane without seeing Jeff and Carolyn on the job, it is wondered how they ever manage a day away from their old station over these last 23 years.
Carolyn explains, “We get time away to go fishing and we save up to visit Lake Tahoe a couple of times a year. We both love to fish, we enjoy the local dances, the fair every year, and we like people. It’s surprising the number of people who stop by every year to ask if we remember them? We remember.
Carolyn turned to Jeff: “Remember Burgess Meredith?”
“Who? Oh yeah,” remembered Jeff. “The little guy who was broke down outside of town. Yes, I think someone said he’s a movie star, but he’s a customer too. We couldn’t have lasted without the support of the local people. We owe it all to them.”
And with that, Jeff turned to mount a tire and Carolyn hurried over to a just-arrived customer where she filled the tank, washed the windshield, checked the air pressure in the tires, all without being asked.
Outside of the mythical Murph, your television “spirit of ’76″ man, how many stations do you know where that happens these days?