While looking at hundred of cookie jars at Bob's Gasoline Alley, Benjamin was flattered to find his face on a jar. It made him feel like a celebrity. As we were walking back to the car, Benjamin was on the phone with the cereal people negotiating to have his face on the Wheaties boxes!
Below is Benjamin trying to keep his hand out of the cookie jar! Have a Happy Day/Week/the rest of November, everyone.
During his senior year in high school and while attending Lawrence University (it was called Lawrence Technical College back then), my husband worked at a gas station around the corner where he lived in Detroit, Michigan. CP earned a Mechanical Engineering degree from Lawerence in 1980. Back then gas stations also served as repair shop and neighborhood places for car guys to hang out. CP became handyman from working there and also learned to fix minor problems, both around the house and automobile from his father and three brothers.
CP still remembered when the owner, Tony, decided to replace the sign, he offered to let CP keep the old Standard Oil Sign with the torch on top. However, a few days later CP could not find the sign anywhere. He was told that it was “accidentally” thrown into the dumpster. (It was probably another employee took the sign, knowing it was given to CP. If only we could find that son-of-a-gun and where he lived, we probably found the sign hanging on the wall in the b@&!@#d's garage!)
Both CP and I had a busy week at work. CP had to take care of a few customers visiting the plant and also getting ready for year-end audit. I kept busy with getting the bi-monthly newsletter published, Christmas Party and Board of Directors meeting in December and other office matters.
This whole week was mixed with warm sunny weather one day and back to chilly and cloudy the next. One evening, after "quitting time", I walked out to the parking lot only when the cold wind hit me, I realized that I left my coat in the office. I look forward to getting a few days off from "picking cottons" during the Thanksgiving holidays. Unless the line was for hockey tickets to the Original Six home games, you would not find me anywhere near the stores on Black Friday. Whatever your plans for Thanksgiving, I hope you will have a wonderful and enjoyable time with family and friends.
Here is what is written about Bob's Gasoline Alley in a very nice article from Route 66 Pulse magazine, www.route66pulse.com,
“A time-warp forest of signs for brands like Gulf, Champlin and Conoco gasoline are part of the unique private collection of Bob Mullen. He is a Cuba businessman with a penchant for accumulating and displaying old outdoor advertising, the type once seen along 66. His unusual hobby covers the outside walls and insides of two barns, plus a large room addition to his home. Trailers on Mullen’s property contain hundreds of items he has no place to display.
But it was a different type of collection that was responsible for Mullen’s purchase of the farm where his proliferation of signs is on display. Eleven years ago he stopped to buy pumpkins and noticed the owner had miniature horses for sale. “The next thing I knew I went home with four I could not live without,” he recalls. Revealing a propensity to quickly acquire what he likes, Mullen adds, “In a few months I owned 15 horses, plus chickens and turkeys.”At the time Mullen was living inside the Cuba city limits. When he realized he was “running a farm in town,” he began to worry about the odor from his animals, so he purchased land outside town where he now lives. With more acreage, he started buying and displaying old advertising signs.
It is also apparent from his front yard that his interest has expanded to antique gasoline pumps. “When I saw my first gas pump, it ‘bit’ me,” he says. Now 60 pumps, once dispensing brands of gasoline such as Hudson, Skelly, Texaco Diesel Chief, Gilmore and Signal, line the barnyard fence. The oldest is a Mobilgas Special pump from 1904.
Although it is Mullen’s tall signs that attract attention, visitors to Mullen’s home find they are a just a part of his world of collections. Pulling into his driveway, a small barnyard of animal pens is evidence that he is still acquiring unusual animals. Now included are emus (he bought 17 because they were “cheap and ugly”), exotic deer, long horn cattle and miniature donkeys.
The real surprise, however, is what is inside each of his two barns. Displayed along with more signs and pumps are collections of hundreds of neon clocks, thousands of antique advertising thermometer signs and over a hundred antique ice chests. Mullen also has more than 5,000 miniature Die Cast metal cars and trucks. Each is a replica of a model from the 1940s and ‘50s when Route 66 was most heavily traveled. As Mullen’s collections grew, he decided the entire accumulation was large enough to be given a name of its own. About six years ago, after seeing a sign that read “Gasoline Alley,” he began to refer to his acquisitions as “Bob’s Gasoline Alley.”
Remarkably, Mullen has assembled his collections in only eleven years. Every item is neatly displayed and dusted as if each piece had just been purchased and cleaned. Anything electric has been rewired and lights up or runs if it is a clock. “I won’t display anything unless it works,” he says. Even the tall pole signs visible from I-44 are all lit at night. “It looks like a small city,” he says.
Mullen knows he is indebted to his wife Darlene, who puts up with his collections. “She dusts everything and ensures each piece is straight,” he says, adding that many refer to her as “a saint.” As recognition for her help, he had a sign painter add “Darlene’s Diner” onto the first large sign someone sees when they come to his home.
Of course, any collection of Route 66 memorabilia would not be completed without a replica of the Blues Brothers performing their famous act!
For this Route 66 Saturday Series and still with a Halloween theme, I am posting the above photo taken from Bob's Gasoline Alley in Cuba, Missouri.It is no secret to the faithful readers of this blog that I don't care much for Halloween. I do enjoy seeing kids dressing up in cute costumes but I am not really into decorating or going to a Halloween party. There are about a dozen kids in our neighborhood and the families walk together in groups, so the whole "Trick or Treat" lasts about an hour. My husband caught a cold earlier this week and still is in bed with running nose, a light fever and body ache. So it was up to me to be a cheerful host when the children stop by. The kids were excited when I put a handful of candies into their baskets/bags and the parents thank me for my generosity. The truth to be known that I just wanted to get the whole thing over quickly as it was kind of chilly standing in front of the house waiting for the kids to come by! Not wanting to be a Halloween Pooper, I am posting the photos below, a smiling pumpkin painted on a bale of hay and the giant eyeball scuplture - BOO from St. Louis!
American artist Tony Tasset created the giant eyeball sculpture. It is made of fiberglass, resin, oil paint and steel and on display at Laumeier Sculpture Park.
While looking at hundred of cookie jars at Bob's Gasoline Alley, Benjamin was flattered to find his face on a jar. It made him feel like a celebrity. As we were walking back to the car, Benjamin was on the phone with the cereal people negotiating to have his face on the Wheaties boxes!
Below is Benjamin trying to keep his hand out of the cookie jar! Have a Happy Day/Week/the rest of November, everyone.
During his senior year in high school and while attending Lawrence University (it was called Lawrence Technical College back then), my husband worked at a gas station around the corner where he lived in Detroit, Michigan. CP earned a Mechanical Engineering degree from Lawerence in 1980. Back then gas stations also served as repair shop and neighborhood places for car guys to hang out. CP became handyman from working there and also learned to fix minor problems, both around the house and automobile from his father and three brothers.
CP still remembered when the owner, Tony, decided to replace the sign, he offered to let CP keep the old Standard Oil Sign with the torch on top. However, a few days later CP could not find the sign anywhere. He was told that it was “accidentally” thrown into the dumpster. (It was probably another employee took the sign, knowing it was given to CP. If only we could find that son-of-a-gun and where he lived, we probably found the sign hanging on the wall in the b@&!@#d's garage!)
Both CP and I had a busy week at work. CP had to take care of a few customers visiting the plant and also getting ready for year-end audit. I kept busy with getting the bi-monthly newsletter published, Christmas Party and Board of Directors meeting in December and other office matters.
This whole week was mixed with warm sunny weather one day and back to chilly and cloudy the next. One evening, after "quitting time", I walked out to the parking lot only when the cold wind hit me, I realized that I left my coat in the office. I look forward to getting a few days off from "picking cottons" during the Thanksgiving holidays. Unless the line was for hockey tickets to the Original Six home games, you would not find me anywhere near the stores on Black Friday. Whatever your plans for Thanksgiving, I hope you will have a wonderful and enjoyable time with family and friends.
Here is what is written about Bob's Gasoline Alley in a very nice article from Route 66 Pulse magazine, www.route66pulse.com,
But it was a different type of collection that was responsible for Mullen’s purchase of the farm where his proliferation of signs is on display. Eleven years ago he stopped to buy pumpkins and noticed the owner had miniature horses for sale. “The next thing I knew I went home with four I could not live without,” he recalls. Revealing a propensity to quickly acquire what he likes, Mullen adds, “In a few months I owned 15 horses, plus chickens and turkeys.”At the time Mullen was living inside the Cuba city limits. When he realized he was “running a farm in town,” he began to worry about the odor from his animals, so he purchased land outside town where he now lives. With more acreage, he started buying and displaying old advertising signs.
It is also apparent from his front yard that his interest has expanded to antique gasoline pumps. “When I saw my first gas pump, it ‘bit’ me,” he says. Now 60 pumps, once dispensing brands of gasoline such as Hudson, Skelly, Texaco Diesel Chief, Gilmore and Signal, line the barnyard fence. The oldest is a Mobilgas Special pump from 1904.
Although it is Mullen’s tall signs that attract attention, visitors to Mullen’s home find they are a just a part of his world of collections. Pulling into his driveway, a small barnyard of animal pens is evidence that he is still acquiring unusual animals. Now included are emus (he bought 17 because they were “cheap and ugly”), exotic deer, long horn cattle and miniature donkeys.
The real surprise, however, is what is inside each of his two barns. Displayed along with more signs and pumps are collections of hundreds of neon clocks, thousands of antique advertising thermometer signs and over a hundred antique ice chests. Mullen also has more than 5,000 miniature Die Cast metal cars and trucks. Each is a replica of a model from the 1940s and ‘50s when Route 66 was most heavily traveled. As Mullen’s collections grew, he decided the entire accumulation was large enough to be given a name of its own. About six years ago, after seeing a sign that read “Gasoline Alley,” he began to refer to his acquisitions as “Bob’s Gasoline Alley.”
Remarkably, Mullen has assembled his collections in only eleven years. Every item is neatly displayed and dusted as if each piece had just been purchased and cleaned. Anything electric has been rewired and lights up or runs if it is a clock. “I won’t display anything unless it works,” he says. Even the tall pole signs visible from I-44 are all lit at night. “It looks like a small city,” he says.
Mullen knows he is indebted to his wife Darlene, who puts up with his collections. “She dusts everything and ensures each piece is straight,” he says, adding that many refer to her as “a saint.” As recognition for her help, he had a sign painter add “Darlene’s Diner” onto the first large sign someone sees when they come to his home.
Of course, any collection of Route 66 memorabilia would not be completed without a replica of the Blues Brothers performing their famous act! 
American artist Tony Tasset created the giant eyeball sculpture. It is made of fiberglass, resin, oil paint and steel and on display at Laumeier Sculpture Park. 
