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here for the great service; people who would just hand Ritchie their Visa. We tapped it for them, they didn’t even come in. The trust was there.”
They were also one of the last stations still doing charge accounts for their business clients.
In recent years, the garage had won many local business awards, in acknowledgment of their employees and also the community work they did.
Over the 12 years that the Muises owned the business, they estimate at least two dozen people had worked there. In December 2020, the garage suffered a major loss with the death of Larry Burke, who had worked at the garage for over 50 years and was the manager.
Like Hopkins is, Burke was considered family too.
NEARLY 46 YEARS ON THE JOB
For employee Ritchie Hopkins, the customers meant everything.
Starting work here on June 10, 1976, he says he enjoyed meeting people at the pumps, many of whom became friends. All of his employers over the decades, he says, were very kind and ‘super nice.’
The business – with tables tucked in the corner inside amid coolers and shelves stocking beverages and snacks – also became a social area for people to gather and chat.
Hopkins worked a lot of evening shifts, which he enjoyed. Throughout the decades, he saw many makes and models of vehicles pull up.
He wonders how much mileage he himself put in over the years walking to and from the pumps when the familiar ‘clang, clang’ sounded as a gas customer had pulled up.
He recalls a seminar Shell had put on after he had been on the job for about 15 years. He took some strong messages away from that.
“The person who drives up in a Cadillac, you do not put the gas cap on the car,” he recalls being told. “But the person who drives up in a $500 Volkswagen, that’s all that person can afford, and they think as much about their Volkswagen as the guy in the Cadillac does. So you treat every vehicle as if it was that nice shiny Cadillac.”
Now 65 years old and almost 46 years on the job, you’d think with the garage closing it would be a good time for Hopkins to retire. Think again.
He’s always had a strong work ethic and doesn’t plan to let go of that yet. Even when he worked at the garage, he was juggling other jobs.
“I worked here evenings. I worked at Sears for 27 years. I worked at Bulk Barn for 13. I’m still selling monuments at Smet Monuments. That’s been probably 33 years,” he says. “And now I’m leaving here and I’m going to work at La Shoppe a Carl in Wedgeport.”
The garage’s customers didn’t just appreciate Hopkins’ friendliness, they appreciated his helpfulness and honesty too.
“I remember one gentleman, he came in and had a lottery ticket. He said ‘I know
I lost.’ He was quite elderly, but he said check it,” recalls Hopkins. “He walked out of the door. I checked his ticket and it was worth $50. I rapped on the window and I beckoned for him to come back, I said you won $50. He later got a hold of the gas station’s owner and said, ‘You’ve got one of the most honest people I’ve ever seen in my life.’”
Hopkins just experienced a major loss in his life with the
death of his mother, Phyllis. Her funeral was held the day before the garage closed.
But even in his time of loss, it was still important to Hopkins to put in his last shift at the place that has meant so much to him.
“Out of all my jobs, this garage was my favourite,” he says. “The customers. The people that employed me. The social times here. It always was my favourite place.”