In case you just tuned in, I’m doing a little fact-checking as I go through Scotty Bowers’ “Full Service.” This will be fairly tedious except to a research drudge.

What is it about “Full Service” that inspires people to get out their microscopes? It turns out that I’m not the only one fact-checking this book. There’s an entire thread on imdb about it.

Here’s user Lysandra Yaxley (clearly a Harry Potter fan) critiquing Bowers’ claims about an affair with Spencer Tracy and looking into Bowers’ account of his early life.

Fact-Checking “Full Service”: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Being a slow-poke research drudge, I am still on Page 1, where we find this:

Russ Swanson, an ex-Marine Corps buddy of mine, worked at a Union Oil gas station on Wilshire Boulevard. He occasionally asked me to help out at the pumps from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., just before I went to work at my own evening gas station job on Hollywood Boulevard.

Alas for Russ Swanson, this is his only appearance in “Full Service.” But I thought it would be fun to do a little digging.

Not everybody has a copy of the 1946 Los Angeles Yellow Pages, but the Daily Mirror acquired one years ago on EBay. And so we find five Union Oil stations about the time Bowers arrived in Los Angeles:

Wilshire and Flower, via Google Street View

Wilshire and Highland, via Google Street View

Wilshire and Hobart, via Google Street View

Wilshire and Virgil, via Google Street View

Wilshire and Wilton, via Google Street View