most of the favorite memories of my boyhood days in arkansas are scattered around an old wood stove at a place we call john s it was just an old tar paper shack with a pump out front and some junk out back but inside there was always a hot cup of coffee and a warm place around the fire for anyone john pumped gas for a living and he fixed tires on the side and i guess old john could fix most anything if you didn t push it he d try and he gave me my first charge account for some gas and financed my first date even fixed my old radio just in case i got lucky and wanted to park down by the lake and among the carburetors and the re built generators i spent the whole night picking on an old flattop guitar john would play the fiddle and i d always sing a little no there is no place to get filled up the way you could at john s john taught me a whole lot about country music because he loved it we d sit up and listen to the grand ole opry every saturday night nobody would ever say a word not even during martha white and i was awfully young back then but still i knew just why that john closed the shop the whole day when we heard that hank had died there was something else special about ole john he had a way of making us kids feel important simply by giving us a good clean place to hang out well i can still hear him saying pumping gas is a fever boys it ll get in your blood and it ll make your face break out in a grin just to check old lady hanson s oil or to help a stranded friend and among the carburetors and the re built generators