The Candlelight
Sanctuary
Church Page
Acquiring the Benefits of Biblical Wisdom
on Amazon.com
Buckhart Cemetery
and
Family History
Achenbach Cemetery
God Bless America
By Jerry L. Ginther
Scrubbing road oil from the sides of our cars and those old white walled tires was an annual, summertime job in our small, central Illinois town of Sullivan. Try as we might we could never avoid the inevitable; the day the road oil would come to our particular street or would be applied to a street on which we must drive. Everyone searched for new routes to get as close to their destinations as possible without having to drive on the black, stinky goop, only to discover their plan had been defeated. The city crews had cut off their escape route by beating them to the other road they had contrived to use.
On those hot, summer days the city and township crews were laying the oil on thick and covering it with a thin layer of sand. The sand, of course, was next to useless in keeping the oil off of anything, especially after a few cars had passed over it. However, we did learn a couple of minor, mitigating procedures. If we drove very slowly over the oiled surface the tires didn't throw the oil quite as high, and we could drive with the right two wheels on the shoulder where possible. The latter option wasn't always available, but utilized where practicable.
It seems that the older kids in the family were summoned to the task of road oil removal. As an incentive, we were told that the sooner we got at the chore the easier the removal would be. Maybe, but I don't recall that we were allowed the option of testing that theory. My theory was a little different. Adults just wanted it off sooner rather than later. Detergents, kerosene, gasoline and other home remedies were employed for the project, but I don't remember any of them really making the scrubbing process much easier.It was never a wipe on wipe off operation.
Of course, the oil wasn't just a problem for motor vehicles. Bicycles, shoes and other articles of clothing were equally susceptible, and getting the oil off of boys, girls and pets produced an aggravated degree of difficulty as well. We would line up along the streets to watch the big road graders plow them up and level them. Then, of course, we would stand there to see the application of the oil, too, which had a splatter range as wide as the street itself. And, once the street was oiled, we just had to get to the other side. For that reason children with black feet were a common sight in those days, and I might add that frustrated parents weren't too gentle about scrubbing it off (voice of experience here). Also, I suspect that lots of summer clothes remained permanently soiled, because the stuff did not wash out of clothing any easier than it washed off of automobiles.
After the streets had "cured" beyond oil slinging capability they produced another problem for cyclists. If you have ever ridden a bicycle on an oiled street or road on a hot summer day, you will recall that it was about three times as hard to pedal. Only those of us who have had that muscle building experience would know the reason; oiled streets became very soft when hot. Bicycle tires sank into the soft surface to a depth that would create a visible print or even a rut making the ride a test of endurance.
If I could say one good thing about that method of street maintenance, it would be that when they finished the process the resulting surface was the smoothest one could ever hope to drive on. Doug Baily, foreman of the city street department says, "That on the down side, and probably the reason they discontinued using just oil and sand, was due to the pothole problems. They now use a combination of oil and gravel chips, which makes a road surface with longer endurance and less maintenance."
This is another fond memory from my archive of growing up in Sullivan.
Jerry L. Ginther
