When you were a teen.. did you 'cruise' in your car?

[mamajoan]

Hi, I was a teen in the mid 70's. I lived on a farm about 5 miles from town. Town was a little rural town too.. about 3000 people.

Any teen with a drivers license would get in his car with his friends and "SHOOT THE LOOP" many times during the evening hours. "Shooting the loop" meant to drive down hwy 53 which ran thru the middle of town with one stop sign (now a stoplight), turn around in Angelo's Liqours parking lot then head back to
The Launching Pad and turn around in that lot then repeating the cycle. Sometimes the pattern was interupted by a burger and fries at "the Pad" or in the summer an ice cream soda...
Shooting the loop meant freedom, laughter, silliness of boys and girls, and Music.. usually from WLS in Chicago....

ah life was grand! To this very day whenever I am back 'home' I take my kids and we "shoot a loop" for old times sake!

So Did you cruise?

 

[olena]

I cruised once when we visited my cousins. I can't drive, so I never really cruised in school.

 

[Disney845]

No when I was in highschool cruisin' wasn't something that was really done. There was a place called The Compound though and there were street races there. It was a place out in the middle of no where that they had planned to build a housing developement, but I guess it fell through. They had paved all the roads for the housing developement though, so it made for an interesting place to go have bon fires and race stuff (cars, bikes, 4 wheels) but you could get lost, or stuck in the mud, or caught in some of the grown over trees and plants if you weren't careful.

 

[tiggerlover]

My girlfriends and I and some times we went with the guys, cruised on Friday or Saturday nights, but it was never me driving, always someone else. (This was in the early 80's).

 

[shortbun]

Round and Round we went at Frisch's Big Boy and the
parking lot next door. Drag races were set up there and
people jumped in and out of cars then went driving again.
We went there to see and be seen. It was definitely fun
and getting a burger or a cherry 7-up was included sometime
in each night. Kids from all over the county came so we
all got to know each other in the summers. What a great
memory-thanks MamaJoan!

 

[Tony-NJ]

Central Avenue in Yonkers was pretty popular back in the 80's.

 

[Mamu]

My HS years were in the 60's so of course we cruised.

 

[snoopy]

We did cruise, I was a teen in the late 70's. Everyone did it then, and most people had hot rod cars. My then boyfriend (now husband) had a 1969 Dodge Charger, we'd race around town in this thing. Amazingly, no one ever got a ticket.

I grew up in the city though, so it was just one main strip where we would go and just drive up and down all night long. And there was a McDonalds at the end of the strip where everyone would hang out.

Those were the days!

 

[Gail T AGAIN]

I sure did. amazing when we look back at how the yrs were for our teen years. Boy has the world changed. These teens will be doing the same thing as we are and it will all change to them too.

 

[CamColt]

I started driving in the late 80s. Yeah, I guess you could say we cruised. For those from this area, we cruised Revere Beach, , and then all the big hangouts for our class like Bill & Bobs p-lot(Woburn), the Mystic Lakes(Medford), and the p-lot behind our school (Arlington). This was a nightly thing the summer after we graduated.

 

[dizneenut]

Yup. Everyone hung out at Lakeview Park (Beach). We'd drive round and round, then park and hang out w/ everyone and watch everyone else cruise round and round.

 

[Chattyaholic]

Yup! In fact, cruising is how I met my DH!! A girlfriend and I had gone to see a movie, and when we got out we had to brush the snow off my Dad's car before we could leave. A car drove by and a guy hollered (DH's cousin) at us and threw a snowball...we followed them. Ended up parking next to each other in JC Penney's parking lot to talk. My girlfriend and DH's cousin did most of the talking, but we made plans to "meet" at the roller skating rink Sunday afternoon, and the rest...is history...

 

[snowwhitemom]

Oh yeah it was a big thing around here...the police would have to step in on weekends and if your car passes a certain area 3 times you would be ticketed for crusing.......Now I understand the traffic problem...then I did not.

 

[Lucky4me]

We always hung out at the beach and poeple raced on Lake avenue, the road that led to the beach. As a matter of fact Foreigner (a 70s rock band) sang a song with Lake avenue in it. Lou Gramm was from Rochester. What a great 70s rock band they were...**sigh**

Heres the song: Rev on the red line


Two in a row, everybody knows
At the green light you rev it on the red line
Been waitin' all week to get my wheels on the street
Get my hands on the wheel, slide down in the seat
She's wearin' new colors and runnin' pretty good
I got four hundred horses tucked under the hood
But there's no need to panic, it's under control
We're aerodynamic and ready to roll

Rev on the red line
You're on your own
Rev on the red line
Just let it go

Runnin' all night on lake avenue
It's a piece of cake
If you know what to do
You've got to lose a few
til the stakes get high
When the odds are right
You just blow by

And make no mistake, there's women who just wait
For the man and machine with the best time

Rev on the red line
You're on your own
Feels like a lifetime
But soon you'll know

Wasn't long ago could've lost my wheels
Had to outrun the law, it was no big deal
I guess they had a grudge, they were hot on my tracks
I had to pay off the judge to get my license back
Now I need to pin those needles, got to feel that heat
Hear my motor screamin' while i'm tearin' up the street

Rev on the red line
You're on your own
Rev on the red line
Just let it go

Rev on, rev on
Rev on, rev on

 

[JohnTBap]

Nope. The cruising area was in a colorful part of Houston and I realized that I had no business being there so I never went.


(I see how that sounds and I by "colorful" I mean where a lot of nightclubs and stuff are.)

 

[jx3smom]

Nope. I didn't have a car and most of my friends didn't either.

DH said he did cruise very often. He was a teen in Wildwood and in the winter there wasn't much else going on.

 

[Krisu]

Yes The family car was a big Plymouth (yellow) I could fit at least 6 or 7 friends in it! There was only 1 Drive-in (Dutchess) and we kept making a big circle all night. Think there might have been some Boone's Farm and Ripple with us Not me though, I was always the "designated driver"

 

[bobcat]

Boy this brings back memories! We would cruise the main drag in Mt Vernon every weekend. There was the town square on one end and a Burger King on the other. The town didn't like it and even put up a gate to try and redirect cars onto the parallel street and stop the cruising but we were able to get around that by going down a small side street. It was a huge expense and didn't work at all. It was good clean fun and there was rarely a problem, mostly loud music but since this was in the business district with no homes they rarely enforced it. We spent some great evenings cruising!

 

[GEM]

No, because my car was embarassing. We cruised in my friend's much cooler car. There wasn't much else to do in the town where I grew up except cruise up and down main street - the city pool parking lot was the turn-around and gathering spot. It's still what all the kids there do on the weekend.

 

[EROS]

I preferred parking at the.........DRIVE IN...........aka the teenage passion pit .....