Hate BP, but hug your local station owner

Folks were out protesting at a BP station in Minneapolis' Uptown last week, and no one needs ask why. You have to be amused by BP's old slogan, "Beyond Petroleum." Yes, except for the whole petroleum part. The logo has a sun and plant elements, as if the fuel you're pumping came from magic GasFlowers that turn their faces to the sun every morn and squirt out a quart of unleaded. As the son of a gas station owner, I've always been put off by that: For heaven's sake, be proud. Your logo looks like you're the Hydrocarbon Shame Shop, and no one's fooled.

We were a Texaco family, and that was back when gas stations sold gas and little else. A display rack of unbreakable combs, a card of Evergreen air-fresheners with the buxom blonde looking entranced by the prospect of men with combed hair and piney cars. Soda? Machine's over there. The idea of going to the gas station for a quart of milk was like going to the grocery store for wiper blades. The main attraction was gas, brother, and the ad campaigns touted their manifold virtues: No knock! More pep! Kept valves clean! Cities Service had ads that showed cartoon cars shooting off the deck of an aircraft carrier -- which is great if you're taking the family out for a bombing run, I suppose.

Now gas is just gas, and the stores have signs for inedible pre-fab sandwiches and cookies the size of manhole covers and slushees with enough sugar to induce diabetes in a marble slab. Gas? Oh, we have that, too, but don't hate us for it.

There's a simple reason for this change: Gas stations make between diddly and squat on gas, and pay the rent with jerky and smokes. They hate expensive gas because you buy less jerky. Worse, when a brand has a PR nightmare like BP -- and really, they might as well change their name to Al-Qaida Pedophile Puppy-Stranglers, it'll buff their image -- the folks who sell the stuff on the corner get the heat and watch glumly as people wave signs outside the store and drivers pass by.

Believe me, they want the hole plugged, too.