This Nostalgic Life is a free weekly publication rich with nostalgia brought to you by co-creators Eric Vardeman and Mick Lee. If this is your first time reading, you can subscribe using the button below so you don’t miss receiving any future issues delivered straight to your inbox.
Thanks for joining us for another issue of This Nostalgic Life. This time out we’re telling stories about those summer nights spent cruising up and down the main drags with our friends. If you’ve got a story of your own, feel free to drop us a comment and share it with us. But otherwise, on with the stories!
Cruising
by Mick Lee
Way back in the winter of 1994 when I got my driver's license and my truck, I couldn't wait to be in it as much as possible just riding around. That feeling of freedom that came with just being able to get out and go whenever, and where ever, you wanted to was exhilarating.
And how did I choose to exercise this new found freedom? By riding around in circles around town of course. But it wasn't referred to as just "riding around", it was "cruising". One of the most often used phrases among my friends and I in those days was, "let's go cruise." All that simply meant was us jumping into a vehicle, rolling down the windows and turning the music up, and riding through town seeing who we could see. Or to be seen. Then we might flag someone down somewhere and pull up alongside of them and just talk. And when we weren't actually on the street cruising, we were parked in a parking lot somewhere with an untold number of other teenagers just hanging out and listening to music.
We didn't need to go to a movie. We didn't need to go bowling. We didn't need any destination other than a parking lot. Night after night we were content with just cruising. Some nights we would go to one of the other towns around and cruise there to mingle with those teenagers. And some nights they would come to our town to cruise.
And one of the better parts about cruising was the variety of people you would cruise with. Maybe my best friend and I would make a lap or two around town, and then run in to some other friends who were our cruising. My best friend might hop into the other car, while that passenger hopped in with me and we'd make a few laps. There were plenty of times that I would pick up half a dozen different girls to cruise with on a given night. It was always great to have that variety...different people to talk to about different things. Different girls to flirt with all of the time. And it was while cruising that a lot of weekend plans were made. While riding around with different girls, it was always a goal to line up dates for Friday and Saturday nights. And if that fell through, then trying to line up a party or something took precedent. Worst case though was you'd just end up cruising through the weekend, which wasn't bad as far as a worst case scenario goes.
It was a small town that we cruised in. The main drag was only about 1.5 miles long. At one end of that drag was an old grocery store with a large parking lot. That's where most people would park and hang out. It was also where we turned around to cruise back the other direction. At the other end of the drag was the local McDonald's. We'd cruised through their parking lot as a way of turning around to head back in the direction of the grocery store. There was a small packing lot behind that McDonald's where some would gather as well.
For the most part we'd just cruise this loop until we spotted someone we wanted to talk to. Maybe they'd hop in with us, or we'd hop in with them to make the loop a few times before separating again.
It was simplistic, but those were simpler times. Cell phones weren't prevalent, so tracking friends down on the street was sometimes the best way to get ahold of them for making plans. And meeting and talking to girls in the parking lot was a much better way of doing things than sending them a DM on social media. You'd meet, you'd flirt, maybe ride the loop a few times together during the week, and then maybe have a first date on the weekend. It was the natural order of things in our area back then.
Cruising was an integral part of my teenage life, and I hate that today's generation of youth don't know what they are missing out on. Social skills were developed, relationships formed, and on some lucky nights, secrets and memories were created that we still don't talk about today. It wouldn't be gentlemanly to spill those secrets, even after all of these years.
But this time of year when the weather is warm at night, my mind still drifts back to that small town, and memories of listening to Bob Seger and cruising down the drag come rushing back. I can't go back to those times, but the memories remain, and they're memories that I cherish.
Six Cops, Four Tickets, and One Church
by Eric Vardeman
It’s the Summer of 1987 and I’m getting ready to start my senior year of high school. Two of my buddies - Johnny and Mike - and I are in my car, the 1971 Chevelle Malibu I’ve written about before, cruising around town. We had already stopped at a pizza joint (of course it was a Pizza Hut) where a friend of ours hustled up some free food for us, then stopped by a friend’s house because her parents were out of town and a couple of girls we were sweet on were spending the night with her. My buddy, Mike, lived alone with his dad who never seemed to be home during the week and was gone almost every weekend. This being one of the weekend’s he was gone, we decided to head back over to Mike’s house to hang out and find some mischief to get ourselves into.
On the way to Mike’s house, another guy we knew, Barry, saw us at a red light. I could write an entire post about how many reckless situations Barry was known for when it came to driving (I had been an unwitting passenger for a couple, to be honest) so it was no surprise that he and his carload of buddies whipped it around at the red light and started tailing us. Hard. It didn’t take long for the situation to become a game of cat and mouse, weaving in and out of traffic, down one of the highways that was the main drag in our town.
This game of chase quickly diverted to less crowded streets and neighborhoods till, finally, we grew tired of it and decided just to head to Mike’s house…if Barry and his gang followed, so be it. I took a shortcut through a neighborhood where, after a rather long sharp curve, the regular two way residential street turns into a split two way with a center median. As I came around that curve - at an admittedly high rate of speed - we spotted a police car coming from the opposite direction on the other side of the center median. He spotted us, too, because he flipped on his lights. The smart thing to do would have been to just pull over and wait but my two buddies looked out the back window to see if he was stopping Barry or coming for us and they noticed that Barry had stopped in the middle of the road in such a way that it blocked the cop from turning around to come after us. It was at that point that I heard them both say:
Go. Go. GO!
My car may not have been fast but it was loud and, as I punched the gas and took off, I’m sure the neighbors and the cop heard me on the getaway. I ran a stop sign, flying through a rather major intersection that, during the day, would have been busy and was into the residential area across the street. On the run. From the cops. While I ultimately never had a chance to get away, I put up a pretty good struggle for a while. We twisted and turned through neighborhood streets, hid in a couple of driveways of complete strangers at ELEVEN O’CLOCK at night (it’s a wonder we didn’t get shot). Eventually, we realized there were multiple cops after us. We were in the general vicinity of my parent’s house and my grand plan was to make it to my house, pull in the garage and hide till daylight (I didn’t say it was a well thought out plan). Then the bottom fell out. I rounded a curve that was nearly 90° at close to 45 mph and blew a tire. We were sunk.
But as I came to a rolling stop, we spotted a beacon in the night. Just across the street was a church with a single light on and standing in a doorway where that light was coming from was a man. Just watching us. So I rolled into the empty church parking lot, we ran up to the door and when the man opened up for us I told him we had blown a tire and asked if we could use the phone. He graciously let us in and I proceeded to call my father and tell him I blew a tire and needed help. No mention of anything else going on. He said he’d get dressed and come help us. We thanked the gentleman and walked back outside to wait on my dad only to be welcomed by six police cars, lights blazing. We were cooked.
The police quickly separated the three of us for questioning and, after they were done, sat us all on the ground by my car with murmurs of “arrest” and “jail” hanging in the air. I had never been more scared in my life.
Until my dad pulled up.
I watched him talk to a couple of the officers and could visibly see the anger build on his face as the details were relayed to him. Finally, the lead officer walked over and told John and Mike that officers were going to take them home. As for me, the officer said I was being released to my father whose presence saved me from a trip “downtown”. I got up to leave and the officer stopped me and said “after I write up your citations”. He wrote me four tickets that night: “attempting to evade”, “excessive speeding”, “running a stop sign”, and “reckless driving”. It was a quiet ride home. It was a quiet day the next day. My parents finally dropped the hammer on me late on Sunday afternoon. To say they were still mad would be an understatement. I was grounded from my car for a month except for school and work and any plans I already had that involved my car were cancelled. I was also going to pay for the damage to wheel and tire. When I finally made my court appearance, I received driving school, had to pay court costs, and was on probation for a year. The judge warned me that if I received so much as a warning while on probation all four tickets would go on my permanent record.
That night, after the officer gave me my citations and I started to walk away, he got my attention and said “remember son…you can’t outrun the radio.”
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