Before mammoth gas marts, cut-rate lube franchises and Internet tire sales, most business was local and built by personal touch. Service with a smile was the rule. The customer came first, and usually came back again and again.

John Valtos remembers

that time like it was yesterday, because for him, it was. Over 50 years, he served generations of customers at Johnnie’s Service Station on Main Street in Dickson City. Rich and poor, black, white and brown were served the same as war heroes, sports legends and statesmen.

Gino Merli was a customer and close friend. So was Jim Crowley of Notre Dame’s fabled “Four Horsemen.” Former Gov. Bill Scranton was one of John’s favorites. A few were famous, but all customers were regulars at Johnnie’s.

“I never talked to any one of them any different,” John said last Sunday as he prepared to turn over the station keys to a new owner. Every customer deserves the same level of respect, courtesy and gratitude.

“You always say thank you,” John said. “I don’t care if they’re buying $2 worth of gas. You say thank you.”

Johnnie’s opened in 1965, when a gallon of regular gas cost 31 cents and the average new car set you back $2,600. John was a young man then. He is 71 now and has emphysema and heart trouble. He’s having a hard time letting go of the place where most of his life happened.

“It’s difficult, psychologically,” he said, sitting at the dining room table of the family’s Montdale home with his wife, Barbara, 65, and daughter, Ann Tonti, 39, of Dalton. John and Barbara grew up a block apart in Dickson City but never knew each other as kids. He was six years older and busy building a reputation as a ladies’ man.

“I always told myself I don’t want to marry someone my own age, because they’ll get as old and ugly as I am,” he said. One summer day in 1968, he strolled by Barbara’s house. He looked up and saw the future. It was tall and blonde.

“She was sitting on the front porch with those nice legs sticking up,” he said. “I said to myself, ‘That’s a nice girl.’ ”

Barbara came into the station for gas a few days later and John asked her out. She said yes, and three years down the road, they were married. Over the next 43 years, they raised three kids and built a business that in its heyday sold a million gallons of gas annually. And tons and tons of ice.

Every gallon of gas was pumped by John and his employees, which sometimes included daughter Amy Gretzula, 42, and son Jonathan Valtos, 34. Ann worked at the station, too, bagging ice. “Ice put them through school,” said Barbara, who handled the books. Helping out at Johnnie’s and at home taught the kids the value of hard work. Sometimes, money was tight. The monthly mortgage on the station was $400; the house $150. John often took on extra jobs while working full time at the

station.

“Even though he worked so many long hours, he’d always find time to do stuff with the family,” Barbara said. They went to a farm and cut down a tree every Christmas. They went on vacation every year, even if it was just a few days at the shore. Barbara packed picnic dinners and John met her and the kids at a park.

When he went fly-fishing, which Barbara called “his passion,” John took the kids. His devotion to family and personal discipline were real-world examples to the young men who worked for him. Many were lost until John found them.

“He’s been a huge influence, and I’ve heard that from so many people over the years,” Ann said. “Whether it’s being a father figure for young guys that haven’t had one, or the disciplinarian they didn’t have. Dad changed their lives.”

“I taught them how to talk to people,” John said. Most of the young men he hired had the best reason to listen. “They needed the money,” John said. “Kids who were affluent were not looking for a job at a gas station.”

John treated his employees with respect and expected it in return. Some used his lessons to better themselves, joining the military and going to college. Others didn’t. Once, an employee “swore his father up and down right there at the station,” John said. “I fired him right there on the spot. And he was a good mechanic.”

John didn’t want to fire the guy, but standards that aren’t universally met are useless.

He can be intense, but John has a lighter side. The station reflects his wicked sense of humor. A demonic baby doll leers atop a stack of tires. Hands reach from the center of another. His fur coat hangs in a cluttered corner. John is president of the Dickson City Chapter of the Groundhog Society. On Groundhog Day, they march around the pumps towing a toy gopher in a cart.

That tradition may fade away, but Johnnie’s will always be Johnnie’s. The new owner promised John he can visit any time he likes.

“The reputation is better than the property,” John said.

Seasons and keys turn clockwise. Time tumbles forward without regard to our wants and wishes. We are all born with expiration dates, and what we do with the time allowed us is all we really leave behind. John and Barbara have 6½ grandchildren. Jonathan and his wife have a baby due in April.

John Valtos is living proof that the warmth and light of a well-lived life radiates through a community. A regular guy willing to work hard, play fair and stand on his principles can do extraordinary things.

John Valtos didn’t just make a difference.

He is the difference.

CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, pumped a lot of full-service gas back in the day. Contact the writer: kellysworld@timesshamrock.com, @cjkink on Twitter. Read his daily blog at blogs.thetimes-tribune.com/kelly