Ted Phillips talks to a customer on the phone as mechanic Tom Anderson gets a cup of coffee Wednesday morning. Phillips has owned and operated a full service gas station on Rossville Boulevard for 59 years.There is a stiff wind blowing down Rossville Boulevard, and on a Tuesday at Ted’s Service station cars pass in the cold.
Ted Phillips, a 90-year-old who walks with a hunch and a cane, sits in a corner inside, surrounded by the clutter of car parts and broken coffee makers.
His mechanic, Tom Anderson, is on lunch. So he sips Coca-Cola from a white Styrofoam cup and waits. Dozens of blue uniforms, washed and pressed, hang on the wall behind him. The gas tanks are full this month, paid for by parts of his Social Security check, he admits.
But it’s pure gasoline, he says, with none of that alcohol or ethanol.
A metal sign — “Full Servs” — dangles above the pumps. A small wooden plaque above his desk reads: “All things cometh to he who waiteth. If he worketh like hell while he waiteth.”