Cruisin'

Anybody remember cruisin' the main strip or drag?

One of my fondest memories of summers past growing up in the small town of Circleville, Ohio was cruisin' the town. I guess from everybody's perspective it could be their home town as well. I bet all small towns in the U.S. are all pretty much the same. Everybody in high school knew one other well enough to at least wave or toot the horn. We had our preps, geeks, hoods and jocks just as they do today but it really didn't seem like anybody was left out or mistreated because of their social standing. I guess that is what was so nice about living and growing up in a small town.

We would gather a few friends together and donate fifty cents each and we cruised most of the night. Our first stop was the teen center which was located above the library on Main Street. The building the library was housed in must have been a hundred years old. I can still smell the odor of those old musky books located in the very back part of the library where nobody ventured because it was so dark and spooky. I guess that is why those books smelled so badly because they never got opened, or at least it seemed that way.. Anyways the Canteena (the teen center) was located on the second floor. We had dances there with live bands from time to time and of course there was a pool table and not much more but it was a place to meet with your friends.

After spending some time there you headed out Route 22 to make the stop at Noel's Drive in to have a coke and flirt with the newest waitress or carhop and then out the door and towards town to make the drive around at the local Burger Chef. If you didn't buy anything there the manager kicked you out of the parking lot. What a bummer. Once we made our presence known by being kicked out at the Chef we headed out Route 56 to the A& W Root Beer to check out the car hops there and if we were hungry we ordered the Papa Burger. Anybody remember those? In fact there was the Papa Burger, Mama Burger, and Baby Burger with a frosted mug of A&W Root Beer. It couldn't get any better than that.

Off to the other side of town to the bowling alley we headed. This is where the action was most of the time. They had the best cherry cokes and french fries around. If you didn't find who you were looking by now they were either at home or on a date at one of the two drive-in movies. You then cruised by all the hot girls' houses giving them a loud honk and then start all over again. Who said we didn't know how to have fun?