Photo by Brendan Hickey, Wawa at Routes 3 and 352 in West Chester, Chester County, PA
About a year ago, I shared a few meals and conversations
with a woman who came to the Philadelphia area from Texas by way of Washington,
D.C. If that doesn’t strip your cultural
gears then nothing will, and it did in her case. In one of those conversations, she expressed
confusion, to the point of outright skepticism, about our affection for Wawa
stores, and why her realtor had been so enthusiastic about the Wawa being
within walking distance of the apartment that my acquaintance had rented. I tried to explain but found that my
explanation failed – not merely in the ears of the belle from Texas, which is
like a whole other country – and Washington, D.C., a locale which defies any
understanding – but also my own. Why do
we like Wawa so much?
I came to my own fondness later in life than many. I first realized the distinctiveness of this
establishment while living in Richmond, Virginia (yet another planet unto
itself) in the early 1990’s. I went
there as a United Methodist missionary but stayed for two more years in what
would become merely my inaugural tour of graduate school. While at the Presbyterian School of Christian
Education, I had a conversation about home with a woman who was originally from
Georgia (Planet Georgia, it seems, based on the emerging themes in this post)
but had done her undergraduate work at a school in Philadelphia.
Yes, among all of the things that we could have discussed,
we included a chain of convenience stores.
Such is the Wawa mystique. This
is also when I discovered the Wawa Laugh Test.
Though the capacity to effectively and efficiently and correctly order a
cheesesteak is a sure test of a Philadelphian, or not, the inclination to laugh
at the name “Wawa” positively delineates natives of the Delaware Valley (what
valley and why Delaware is another tale for another time) from the rest of the
world. Respect or not, reverence or not,
the name simply doesn’t sound funny to anyone from this region, but apparently
it does to everyone else.
Why are we so fond of Wawa? I suspect that the name is among the reasons
and it is an excellent place to start.
The name
Wawa stores take their name from the name of the town in
which the headquarters are located. Wawa
is a town in Delaware County, a bit south/west of Media, along U. S. Route
1. Because there is always a reason to
argue, we could make a good argument that the site of the former Franklin Mint
is in Wawa. The town shares a ZIP Code
with Media and with Elwyn, 19063. That’s
it. That’s the name.
Wawa is not correctly written in all caps, as an acronym,
any more than, say PAOLI would be. It is
not correctly written as WaWa, either, thus becoming a bizarre and
indeterminate grammatical form, as though DoylesTown or ConShohocKen made any
sense. Despite the insistence of some on
the other side of the Delaware River, Wawa is also not correctly referred to as
“the Wa” no matter how close to and/or symbiotic it might be with a local Y. These are all common corruptions of the name.
So, the name Wawa, which might sound silly, I don’t know, is
probably part of the hometown allure of this chain. Another part is our history of local retail
chains.
Our history
I am old enough to remember Gimbels, though not much about
it, other than a sense of it being a lower-end department store. It was the first old Philadelphia department
store chain to fold.
Wanamaker’s, the
top end, with its flagship near City Hall, home to the Wanamaker eagle, where
generations agreed to meet before cell phones, and the largest indoor pipe
organ in the world, and a famous Christmas music and light show, was next. John Wanamaker was a Mason and once Right
Worshipful Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, the lodge
headquartered at One North Broad Street and founded by Benjamin Franklin, by
the way.
The last chain to fold was Strawbridge and Clothier, with
its chain of discount stores called Clover.
I worked at Strawbridge and Clothier full-time in its last year, in the
men’s dress furnishings department of the store in Exton Square Mall, from 1995
to 1996, then part-time for the next five years at the store as owned by May
Company, which truncated the name to Strawbridge’s but had the sense to keep
that much, rather than using the name Hecht’s as in other markets. It wouldn’t work in the Delaware Valley.
Wawa to Benjamin Franklin to Strawbridge’s in two
paragraphs? Yes, that is the
Philadelphia way. We love our hometown
brands and Wawa is the last survivor of that era and another reason why we love
it. Wawa is our home team, one that wins
and doesn’t seem to make bad trades.
For all of that, it is hard to believe that the chain opened its first store on April 16, 1964, in Folsom, Delaware County. You might think that Wawa had been around
forever. It feels that way.
Local pride
In fact, those are our neighbors behind the counter and
folks get a bit touchy. No matter how
long the line, do not EVER risk a complaint about the staff. Better that you should roam the Linc wearing
a Cowboys jersey with snow on the ground, which at least would not be personal.
In fact, Wawa is a good job and a source of pride in this
area. You might be embarrassed to sling
Slurpies but anyone who makes a Shorti can stand tall. That headquarters in Delaware County includes
a corporate university. Wawa can be a
job or it can be a career and either will earn you respect. The movie “Clerks” was filmed in New Jersey
for a good reason. Kevin Smith couldn’t
set that movie at Wawa.
Wawa earns that respect, too. The coffee is always good, the gas prices are
always fair, and the PNC ATM will not charge you a fee. The bathrooms are clean and the stores are
safe, but more than that, Wawa keeps going when the weather turns to hell. If you can make it to Wawa, it will be open
for you but, straight up, when Wawa is closed then you should stay home. The water is too high or the snow is too deep
and supporting the patrols and service crews has become too dangerous. When the weather is too much for Wawa, it’s
too much for everyone. I don’t even know
what makes a 7-11 close. Maybe fog.
The parking lots
The one place where it is fair to knock Wawa is in the
parking lots. Whether it’s a small, older,
inner-ring store like Morton, or a Super Wawa with gas pumps in West Chester, a
Wawa parking lot can be a tricky, dangerous place. I once mutually rear-ended a Saturn at
Wawa. I didn’t see him, even after we
collided, but I was backing into the morning sun and couldn't see much. In that respect, I am glad that I hit a
Saturn and not a child. I don’t know
what he was looking at, perhaps his spoiler, which has no business being on a
Saturn. With only a small dent beside
the spare tire on my RAV4 and his stupid spoiler being cracked, we shook hands
and agreed to let it go.
I have seen outright collisions, right in front of police,
at Wawa, and I have seen road rage in the gas lanes. Driving in a Wawa on a weekday morning is a
risky adventure but I don’t think that Wawa can do much about it.
However, I do think that PennDOT should make the best of it
and rent out a few Wawa stores for driver’s tests. I’ve been driving for 30 years and I don’t
care if you can parallel park. I really
can’t. I need space equal to that for a
747 – on a good day, enough to park one, but on a bad day, enough to land
one. It just means that I walk more, no
big deal. If you respect school buses
and crosswalks, use your turn signals, can drive from 30 MPH to 45 MPH in the
snow, turn on your lights at dark and in rain and snow and fog, and can drive
in a Wawa parking lot at 7:30 on Monday morning then you can share the road
with me.
So, PennDOT should make a deal, designate a few Wawa
stores. PennDOT picks up half of the tab
for any customer who visits from 7 to 8:45 on a weekday morning and makes new
drivers demonstrate their proficiency there.
Might as well make the best of it, and again, really, if you can drive
effectively and safely in a Wawa parking lot at morning rush hour then you can
drive with me, even circle the block a few times with me.
I think that these are the reasons why we
like/respect/support Wawa, though loving a store is probably still taking it a
step too far. Wawa is our home team, the
Wanamaker’s of convenience stores. You
can meet me by the goose any time.
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