When I did the first designs for Syl’s Mini Golf, I drew from my own personal experience, back when I first began to drive almost fifty years ago. My first real job at age 14 was pumping gas back when gas stations offered full service with a smile. My boss’s instructions were to wash the window, check the oil and always put in an extra nickels worth of gas with every purchase. As I recalled those ‘good old days’ I drew up the concepts for an old time station. The owner of Syl’s built the station from those first concepts, changing only what was necessary to make the mini golf clubhouse practical for their needs. There’s two washroom doors in the left outside wall, like the ones I remember. The first ‘garage bay’ will be where the coke vending machines will be placed. The shop man door is in the centre and the rollup door will reveal a small gift shop stocked with auto memorabilia. The office window will be where the clubs and balls are handed out. The two old gas pumps we created sit up front under the canopy and the numbers on the dials reflect the prices of gas I pumped so long ago. Out to the right side is the beat up old tow truck that every station used to own. While the building will function perfectly as a mini golf clubhouse it also closely mirrors the gas stations I remember from my youth. This is story telling at its best.
