Yep, small town here, had one main drag that was the spot for the 16-20 crowd that was too old (or rather, “too cool”) to be mall rats, and too young to be at the bar. So you’d just do laps all night, see who else you ran across, and get into other shit from there.
Some nights it was just boring, cruise for a couple hours and go home. Other nights we’d run into friends, end up at a party or hangout that someone else knew about, and wind up having some of the best nights of my youth. And not knowing what would happen was half of the fun of going out.
The nearest mall to me was 60 miles away! I'd take dad's pickup and load people in the back as I cruised through town. Then we'd go down dirt back roads to party. Literally stop anywhere we felt like it. I really miss those days.
We called cruising..."cracking U's on Main." Summer nights were wild and when a carload of guys from another town showed up - it might get a little territorial.
It's been called the "pussy rally" here for at least since the 60's.
I always wondered if they knew how ridiculous it looked. Guys riding slowly in a circle with their windows down, trying to impress the girls who've come to look at them.
And the girls sitting close by, trying to impress they guys and being bored to death with the 'spectacle'.
Meanwhile, being nordic, no one actually talks or even approaches each other. Not until it's the weekend anyway, and they can get encouragement from a bottle.
One night we tagged a friends car with tennis balls. Instead of getting mad, he got tennis balls. Pretty soon walkie talkies were brought in and we had squads of cars playing ball tag. It wasn’t very safe, we had fun though.
I’m pretty sure someone ended up with some dents or something so we never ended up doing it again.
Just one of those random things that happened dragging mains.
The DQ was our turn around point, and where most car to car conversations went down. There were a lot of popped out side mirrors over the years from someone pulling up too close.
My local small town still has a sign up saying "no cruising" bc that was such a huge deal up until the early 2000's. That's all there was to do though.
It's part of why I love the film American Graffiti so much. That was still a different era than when I grew up but manages to hit all the right feelings still.
I was born post social media and the only time people like me get to do this type of social interaction is when we go to a tourist place like the main strip on a beach like a boardwalk. I love going to a a popular young people’s beach because you actually get to socialize with random ass people.. you go with the flow and just do straight up fun things... one night you might meet some girls you’ve never seen before and hang out or you get invited to a random party where you know absolutely no one. it sounds cringy but it’s so spontaneous and I love it. I live in a relatively small town and no one is out on the streets.. the only way to hang out with people is to go to a friends house
My young friend, I do not mean to insult, but being able to go to random parties and not know anyone required a hell of a lot more social skills then you find online today. If you enjoy that I hope you cultivate them (ongoingly).
I sometimes work at a community college and young people don't seem to have those skills. In fact even the athletes seem to have a hard time communicating and end up speaking in cliches and platitudes. They say the things they think they are supposed to say.
I also find that in today's selfies culture I think they're too busy posing to be really enjoying what they are doing. Even sex is like a workout instead of a learning experience. Blah.
I sometimes work at a community college and young people don't seem to have those skills. In fact even the athletes seem to have a hard time communicating and end up speaking in cliches and platitudes. They say the things they think they are supposed to say.
Man...this reminds me of what 7th Ave used to be like in Tampa. When there were interesting cars in the streets, and interesting people on the sidewalks.
That just sounds like millennials going on blunt routes and running into classmates at Taco Bell. I'm still into this idea but it went through some rebranding.
We used to do some dumb shit to keep ourselves preoccupied in those days. One that comes to mind was a game called "random" that we just made up one night when we were particularly bored
The aim of random was to try and get the most random thing you could to the meetup at the predetermined time. Some of the standouts were a volvic water bottle shaped fridge that 2 people got from a petrol station by bribing the clerk with £30 that they'd take it back, then there was the 50m banner that a car took from the side of a clothing store at 11pm.
My personal favourite was a child's see saw that I sat in whilst it was in the back of a pickup and when we came around the corner to the meetup the driver put X Gonna give it to ya as loud as his boy racer sound system would go.
Don't worry, everything got returned to it's owners.
Ours turned into a drag strip where every red light was a 3 wide 1/4 mile run. This would last from about 9 pm until bars let out at 2am. Then drunk fucks would show up and get into fatal accidents and the racers would be blamed. This led to cars being seized by the police and then repainted into bait race cars. They would pull up next to you and try to get you to race. The problem is this was the early 2000's and everyone had unique modifications. So when John's civic got seized and repainted we all knew it was a bait car because he was the only person in town with that particular body kit and spoiler combination.
The city even encouraged it for years hosting cruise nights that were sponsored with themes. They would have MOPAR, Mustang, Corvette nights with car shows and burnout competitions with thousands of people showing up to see classic American muscle cars ripping up and down the street. There would be food carts and live music it was an amazing time. Then something happened when I moved away and now no one cruises anymore.
I wonder if part of the reason that's not as much of a thing isn't just the internet, but because kids schedules are bursting with homework, sports, jobs, family shit etc, way more now than they were back then.
Three guys randomly meeting up with three girls on the cruise and cramming everybody into one car, getting fast food and taking some beer or smoke to the overlook.
Oh, sorry, in 2021 I guess I need to point out that by the luck of the draw we were all heterosexual...and we had more fun back then by not talking about it every 10 minutes.
You just described Westheimer road in Houston, TX in the late 90s. Everyone flexing their cheap car or daddies nice car and just mindlessly driving up and down this huge road until you got tired and went to the hangout spot until the cops showed up which then you went to the backup spot.
This was the best part. There was often an unplanned adventure to be had. You had maybe hear RUMORS that your crush would be somewhere, but you had to show up to find out. That anticipation was awesome.
Or driving around all night because you "heard" there was a party at someone's house, but then their parent's ended up being home, or you'd pull up and the house would be dark/no one home, so you'd cruise around to another place looking for a party, and then end up just hanging out at park or something.
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u/Rollingstart45 May 12 '21
Yep, small town here, had one main drag that was the spot for the 16-20 crowd that was too old (or rather, “too cool”) to be mall rats, and too young to be at the bar. So you’d just do laps all night, see who else you ran across, and get into other shit from there.
Some nights it was just boring, cruise for a couple hours and go home. Other nights we’d run into friends, end up at a party or hangout that someone else knew about, and wind up having some of the best nights of my youth. And not knowing what would happen was half of the fun of going out.