By Andy Foltz
NKyTribune Reporter
A mainstay of Covington for 84 years will be closing up shop for the final time today, as “Butch” Ostendorf turns his last key on Dick’s Standard Service at the corner of 5th and Main Streets.
In a letter to long-time customers, owner Dick “Butch” Ostendorf Jr. said: “I am now eighty years old and will be undergoing some needed surgery in the very near future. The surgery is not serious but it will require an extended time for recovery. So, we have decided that now is the appropriate time to close the business.
“Besides, I have run out of places to move my desk in order to avoid the leaking roof when it rains!” Butch said in his characteristic good-humored manner.
Butch initially said Monday, May 18 would be the station’s last day but told the NKyTribune it’s today. He will then spend around a week getting paperwork together and preparing the property for sale.
Butch has been working in the garage for 65 years. His father, Dick Sr., opened it in 1931.
At one time, they were the nation’s oldest U-Haul dealer, having rented U-Haul equipment for 58 years.
The service station also used to have gas pumps, but those went away at the end of 1989, due to prohibitive costs in the price of new gas tanks being required by law.
“It was in my mind back then that I’d be getting out in a few years,” Butch said. A quarter of a century later, he was still answering phones Thursday, ordering parts, and greeting customers with a smile and a “Hi, buddy!”
Butch and his wife Margie have three daughters, “and they’re all fixed pretty good,” so instead of passing the station down Butch has decided to close and sell the property. “I wouldn’t wish it on nobody,” he said with a laugh.
By long habit, he arrived at the station around 7 a.m., and rarely left before 7 p.m.
“That’s five days a week,” he said.
When the station sold gas, it was open seven days a week and had seven employees.
Over the 65 years he has been working at the station, Butch has seen many changes.
“When I was a kid here, the street cars were going up Main Street and there will still steam engines coming across the tracks,” he said. “The neighborhood has changed big time. This used to be the main drag, before the interstate.”
In the process of cleaning out the garage, Butch has come across many artifacts of those times, including a bill from a customer of his father’s. The bill ran $1.76 for 10 gallons of gas and two quarts of oil for $.50 apiece. It was dated February 5, 1940.
“There’s a lot of old personal stuff I want to keep,” he said.
“I’ve known Butch for 55 years,” said Bill Goetz, former mayor of Ft. Mitchell. “He was on the South Fort Mitchell Fire Department for a while.
“He’s been at the station for 65 years and for almost all of those he has had the same flattop haircut and worn the same type of shirt with cut-off sleeves regardless of the weather.”
Butch mostly smiled during his trip down memory lane on a pleasant spring afternoon, but he was serious about one thing.
“What I’m going to miss more than anything is my customers,” he said. “Numerous people have been customers that are three-generation families that I’ve been dealing with for years.”
Nonetheless, it’s time for the Ft. Wright resident to enjoy the little things. Butch said he plans to work in the yard some, and in his shop in the basement.
“I’m content,” he said.
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U-Haul is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, and this historical look at its relationship with Dick and Butch Ostendorf appears on the U-Haul website:
My U-Haul Story – Pioneers Dick and Butch Ostendorf