When I decided not to run for a full term as HOA president, Priya asked me to write something for the incoming board โ not a manual, exactly, but a note. Advice. The kind of thing you wish someone had told you on your first day. I wrote it on a Sunday afternoon at the station, between customers, in a spiral notebook, and I read it aloud at my last meeting. Priya had it framed. It hangs in the clubhouse now, next to the plaque for the emergency shelter, and every new board member reads it at their orientation. This is what it says:
"To whoever sits in this chair next:
First, the practical stuff. Read the budget every month, not just the summary โ the actual line items. Ask where every dollar goes, and don't stop asking until you understand the answer. Publish everything. If you're embarrassed to show the residents what you're spending, you're spending it wrong. Never let one person control the money alone โ not the fuel card, not the vendor contracts, not anything. Trust is good. Verification is better. And when someone tells you 'that's how we've always done it,' hear it as a warning, not a reason.
Second, the harder stuff. You will be tempted, at some point, to use this position to punish someone you don't like. A fine here, a violation there โ it'll feel like justice. It isn't. The moment you use the association's power for personal reasons, you've become the thing you ran against. I know, because I watched it happen, up close, for years. The rules are for everyone, including the people who annoy you. Especially them.
Third, show up. Go to the doors. Knock on them. Listen to the people who are angry, even โ especially โ when they're angry at you. Mrs. Alvarez's trash can mattered to Mrs. Alvarez. Mr. Abernathy's mailbox mattered to Mr. Abernathy. The small things are the big things. That's the whole secret of this job, if there is one.
And finally: say no when you need to. Someone will come to you, sooner or later, with a badge or a title or a threat, and demand something that isn't theirs. It might be gasoline. It might be a contract, a favor, a blind eye. Whatever it is, the answer is the same. No โ said kindly, said firmly, said on the record. The no is the job. Everything else is paperwork.
Good luck. The coffee's in the back. The generator test is Mondays at noon. And if you ever need fuel in an emergency, call the station on Meadowlark. We'll be there. We always are.
โ Jake"
People tell me that letter gets quoted back to me at meetings, usually when someone's trying to make a point. I take that as the highest compliment. A letter outliving its writer's tenure โ that's the dream, isn't it? Not the plaque, not the applause, but the words, still working, long after you've gone back to your pumps.
The station's fortieth anniversary was last month. Hendricks opened it in 1987; I bought it in what I still think of as "recently" but the calendar insists was years ago. We threw a party โ closed the pumps for a Saturday afternoon, which Devon calculated cost us about eight hundred dollars in lost sales and which I declared worth every penny. Luis brought a smoker and cooked brisket for three hundred people. Mrs. Abernathy, ninety-one now, arrived in a wheelchair pushed by her great-grandson, carrying banana bread, because some things are eternal. Priya gave a speech. Tom Kowalski cried โ he claims it was the smoke from the smoker, but we all knew better. Elena Ruiz drove in from college with three of her engineering classmates, and they spent an hour peppering Devon with questions about the fuel systems, and Devon โ who'd once been the shy kid behind the register โ held court like a professor. My mother sat in the shade with the other grandmothers, holding court of her own, telling anyone who'd listen that her son was "the gas station president." I gave up correcting her years ago. She's earned the title.
Walter Hendricks didn't make it to the party โ he's ninety-three now, in assisted living across town, and the trip would have been too much. But Devon and I drove out to see him the next day, with a plate of brisket and a copy of the anniversary photo. He held the photo for a long time, his hands shaking the way they'd shaken when he sold me the station, and he looked at the sign โ his sign, the hand-painted WE FILL PROPANE, bronze plaque gleaming beneath it โ and he said, "You kept your promises, son." Four words. I had to step out into the hallway for a minute, because at my age you learn that some sentences weigh more than others, and you need a moment to carry them properly.