By Steve Huffman
shuffman@salisburypost.com
SPENCER ó The fine folks at Sims Auto have moved, but, fear not, loyal customers, the relocation consists of a shift of but a hundred feet or so.
The business isn’t even changing parking lots.
Better still, those who make up Sims Auto’s retirement corner are supportive of the changes.
“If they hadn’t brought the coffee pot, I wouldn’t have approved of it,” said Bob Gobbel, one of the half-dozen or so retirees who spend a couple of hours a day in the garage discussing politics, sports and anything else that pops in their minds.
Just about everyone in and around Spencer is familiar with Sims Auto. The business has been in existence in one form or another for more than 60 years.
It was started as Midway Service Center by Clarence Sims, the father of current owner Bruce Sims, at the corner of Salisbury Avenue and Fourth Street. That was in 1946, when the boys were still returning from World War II.
Business, Bruce recalled, was hopping. The station had a garage and gas pumps. Fueled by high-octane gas that sold for as little as 13.9 cents a gallon, customers came in droves.
“It was new and business in Spencer was booming,” Bruce said. “Everything went right by here. There was no interstate.”
Clarence Sims eventually moved the business south a couple of blocks where it became Sims Shell Service (now the site of Bobby’s Mobil Service). In the early ’60s the shop migrated once more, this time traveling a few more blocks to 1303 S. Salisbury Ave.
Members of the Sims family have over the years added buildings and shuffled things around a time or two. The Texaco gas station they operated was torn down around 1970 and boats were for years sold through Sims Marina there on the property.
The one constant at the site is change and that’s what prompted this latest move, which took place earlier this week.
Sims Auto moved from the bigger of the lot’s structures ó a glass-front building where Sims Auto Parts was for years housed ó to a smaller shop there on the property.
The Sims are trading places with Pete Tysinger who most recently operated a vehicle-storage unit out of the site. Tysinger is renting the larger building and will be selling auto parts.
“Over a period of years, a lot of things have happened here,” Bruce said.
Things are still happening.
Clarence died about 15 years ago and not too long ago Bruce bought his brother’s share of the business. Haynes still frequents the place, one of the regulars in the retirement corner.
Bruce, 76, is semi-retired, typically manning the shop’s counter a few hours each weekday afternoon. He greets customers and lines up work orders. His daughter, Ginger Honeycutt, runs the shop in the morning.
“She’s our CEO,” Bruce said, laughing as he spoke. “She handles everything.”
Doing the repair work at the shop is Bill Roseman, a contract employee and, according to those in the know, as good a mechanic as you’ll find.
“Bill will tackle anything,” Bruce said.
Roseman takes a fair amount of good-natured kidding (and returns it with equal abandon, that’s true) from the guys in the retirement corner. The retirees usually frequent the business for an hour each morning, then return for about the same amount of time in the afternoon.
Asked if members of the group offer him advice when it comes to car repairs, Roseman replied, “All the time, but they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
When someone asked the retirees if they solve the world’s problems during their twice-a-day gatherings, Roseman overheard and shouted from the back of the garage, “Huh! They’re creating all the world’s problems.”
Bruce Sims oversees all this and chuckles. He’s been around and listened long enough to know not to take any of it especially seriously.
Bruce was just 9 when he went to work for his father, starting off by filling the soft drink machines at the station. Over the years, he’s put in countless hours ó he spent 10 years working with the post office while also holding down his job at the service station ó and continues to stay plenty busy.
“The doctors won’t let me work but two hours a day,” Bruce said, lowering his voice and pretending to whisper, “but I’m usually up here for four.”
He remembers the heyday of the service station industry, a time when gas wars lured motorists from miles around. “We’d have people lined up waiting to fill their tanks,” Bruce said.
Then he motioned toward the retirement corner, noting that the gathering has been a tradition at Sims Auto for at least 20 years.
“They’ve gone from being young gentlemen to being old gentlemen,” Bruce said. “We’ve had eight or 10 die out along the way.”
The retirees vary from one day to the next, but the crux of the group consists of Bob Gobbel, Ross Julian, J.D. Shelton, Jim Justice, George Smith, Don Walser, Julius Corriher, Eddie Thompson, Tom Chapman and Tommy Frye.
Others stop by on occasion. Earlier this week, Jim Goodnight stuck his head in the door and was invited to have a seat. “I ain’t got time today,” he replied.
“Which one of those old wrecks are you driving today?” one of the retirees asked.
Goodnight allowed it was his ’92 Buick. “That’s my rainy day car,” he said.
Most of the retirees worked either at Duke Power’s Buck Steam plant or for Norfolk & Southern.
“And he, he ain’t ever worked,” one of the group members said, motioning in the direction of Frye who did nothing but smile in retaliation.
“We might pick a little, but we don’t ever get mad,” Frye finally decided.
Ginger Honeycutt, Bruce’s daughter and the woman who makes the place go, said she learned long ago not to take seriously any conversation that transpires between the retirees.
“They just talk about whatever’s on their minds,” she said. “They don’t mean anything by it. They’re having a good time.”
Then Honeycutt nodded toward her father, who was sitting at the counter and listening to his lifelong friends kid with one another. Honeycutt said her mother, Sarah, died a few years ago and coming to the garage gives her father something to do.
“He’s happier here than he is at home,” she said. “He’s enjoyed his work.”