LAWRENCE: At Bob’s, he’s been there for 50 years

For most people, going to work is a chore — something they need to do to survive.

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
   For most people, going to work is a chore — something they need to do to survive.
   But not Bob Hullfish. He’s one of the lucky ones who figured out what he wanted to do.
   For the past 50 years, Mr. Hullfish has been the owner, the mechanic and the go-to guy behind Bob’s Auto Service, tucked away on Cold Soil Road just around the corner from Main Street in the village of Lawrenceville.
   ”I started coming here when I was 14 or 15 years old. Fred Brian owned the shop. He was a ‘gear-head, kid-friendly’ guy. He would go to lunch and let us kids work on our own cars. Fred would help us when we needed it,” he said.
   Mr. Hullfish and his friends all had “field cars,” which he described as “a car you could drive through the fields and woods” and that they didn’t much care about. Most of the cars were acquired from Mr. Brian, who brought in ones that didn’t work.
   ”It was a very, very innocent time,” Mr. Hullfish recalled. “There were fields and the farms were open and we had permission to go through them. On Cold Soil Road at the top of the hill (near today’s Woodlane Road), it was all country from there on. It was all open fields.”
   Mr. Hullfish is the first to admit that he was more interested in going to stock car races and repairing cars than in going to college, so when Mr. Brian decided to sell the business, he borrowed some money from his family and bought it. That was in November 1963.
   ”I was four years out of high school when Mr. Brian decided to sell out. I was still flopping around, trying to figure out what I would like to do,” Mr. Hullfish said.
   Buying the business was a good decision, because he has never looked back.
   ”I always made a good living. I was here every day, if my children needed me. It was always a place for me to teach them the value of money. They worked for me. They could see how hard I worked,” Mr. Hullfish said of son, Wayne, and daughter, Wendy.
   The business came with a gasoline station, which Mr. Hullfish continued to operate until the 1990s. That’s when the state environmental regulations became too onerous to make it viable to continue to sell gasoline.
   Mr. Hullfish also acquired a tow truck with the business, and he towed for the Lawrence Township Police Department until about three years ago. Since the Hullfish family lived next door to the business, it was convenient — just a few steps from the house to the wrecker.
   ”One thing I liked about being in the business was not having to answer to somebody every day,” he said. “I never got up in the morning and said, ‘Oh no, I have to go to work today.’ I went to work every day without dreading it,” Mr. Hullfish said.
   ”And I always had a 10-step commute,” he said with a laugh.
   Much has changed in the half-century since Mr. Hullfish took over the repair garage. Cars are much more reliable now — almost too good, he said. An engine tune-up used to be needed about every 10,000 miles, and oil changes occurred with 2,000-mile frequency. Cars can go much longer between tune-ups and oil changes now, he said.
   The cars are more complicated today than when he began working on them, Mr. Hullfish said. Mechanics rely on electronic scanners and computers to diagnose cars, and Bob’s Auto Service has that equipment, he added.
   Gradually, Mr. Hullfish has turned over the day-to-day operations to his son, Wayne Hullfish. He is still involved in the business, but he is taking more time to travel, attend stock car races, go out to dinner with friends — “and hang out with the gang.”
   ”How many people can go to work for 50 years and like it? They say, ‘Two more years and I can retire. Two more years and I can get out of here.’ I have no regrets. I would do it all over again,” Mr. Hullfish said with a knowing smile.