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Tanks for the memories New rules take the gas out of hamlet's station By BARBARA GREF Staff Writer YOUNGSVILLE – By the time 9 a.m. rolled around yesterday, Dennis Baim had it whittled down to a single phrase: "Today's the day." It was the end of gas pumping in a tiny hamlet that consists of little more than two churches, a general store and a place that still pumped the gas for you. Dennis' wife, Linda pumped the last five gallons in 52 years of businesses into Laurene McKenna's Chevrolet. McKenna, 24, has lived in this rural western Sullivan County town long enough to cry over this turn of events. She had bought her first tank of gasoline here three years ago and didn't expect to buy her last so soon. "This is a small town and this is the hub of it and it's gone ... all the big places are putting us out (of business)," she said. This scene unfolded in its own way at thousands of small gas stations across the country yesterday. The federal Environmental Protection Agency had sent letters to them all telling that their time was up as of Wednesday at 12:01 a.m. Baim's and its fellow stations are out of compliance with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 which, among other things, requires that older-style underground fuel tanks be upgraded to double-lined models that reduce or prevent leaks. Baim said it would have cost them $80,000 to $100,000 to fix their tanks. Gas is a secondary business in many of these stations, and the auto repair shops that accompany them can remain open. Most everyone, including McKenna, understands the environmental reasons for the changes, but it still doesn't help soften the blow. For the patrons of Baim's, the story goes beyond gasoline. They fret about small businesses and small towns. Baim's is a place of habit and tradition. Townspeople gather there for coffee and news every morning. Yesterday, they hashed-over the weather, the president, the pay raise of state legislators and the late arrival of W2s, said Don Knack, an accountant who's had coffee and conversation for 30 years at Baim's. That sort of gathering is not expected to go away; the store will go on for the foreseeable future. But the loss of traffic from the pumps could do it in. The thought saddens Dennis Baim, whose father and mother, Elwood and Doris, started the garage and gas station in 1946 when they were newly wed. They married in October of 1945 and started pumping gas the following Jan. 3. Elwood Baim is now dead, but Doris – who was Callicoon town clerk for 23 years – continues to help out. She has pitched in to pump gas and has been known to make inquiries and phone calls to track down the owner of a gas cap left behind. She pumped almost all the gasoline here for years. "I laughed when women's lib came in," she said. Yesterday was not much of a time for laughing. George Abplanalp's good-morning smile turned to sympathy then resignation when he found out there was no more gas. "Good luck, guy," he said to Dennis Baim. "A lot of people are going to miss it. Den ... it's a shame." He, like the Baims, are especially worried about a small group of about 10 older women who depend on the fact that Linda will pump gas for them (the era of self-serve never settled upon Baim's). Abplanalp's mother, Gertrude, is among the older women. She is 84 and still drives – she drives a Mustang, in fact, but never learned to pump gas. She plans to get a new Mustang this coming year. It's anyone's guess where she'll get her next tank of gas. |
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