When I was growing up in the late sixties, there was an almost national obsession with a pass time known as "cruising" or "riding around".  Sounds pretty simple doesn't it?  Well, it was a very complicated and ritualistic way to spend a Friday and/or Saturday night if you were a teen in those days.

I can only speak to the place where I grew up but all of the local towns had a circuit of sorts that car loads of teens traveled around in for hours at a time on weekends and on those Spring days when the temperature was unusually warm.  

It would begin at about six or seven o'clock and would last until curew or later if you were over eighteen.  Boys would ride with boys, girls rode with girls and often there would be a purloined bottle of wine like Ripple or Boone's Farm Straberry hill.  Maybe, if you looked old enough you'd score a six pack of beer.  The idea was that as you met cars with people of the opposite sex, you would honk at them.  Hoping to attract the attention of a girl/guy and eventually that led to pulling over and getting to know each other a bit.  If there was a mutual attraction a date would be made, usually for the following night to go to a movie.

 Okay, there were variations on the themes too, like the ones who cruised alone trying to score or at least "go parking".  Mostly though it was driving around and around until it was time to go home.

In our town, the circuit began at the Maid Rite and looped back around at the Dairy Queen.  Over and over we drove or rode around and as we did we talked or listened to rock and roll on the a.m. radios in our parents cars.  KXOK in the early hours and WLS after dark.  All the hits played by guys like Johnny Rabbitt.  

As the years passed the changes in the world were sounding a death knell for the cruising way of life.  Gas shortages made it become more like driving to town and sitting in parking lots.  We would get out and play Frisbee or smoke pot.  We planned back road parties and picked up girls to meet at them.  I know it sound a little silly now but it was, as we said back then "the shit".

As I got older I got married, had kids, and even grandkids.  The old circuit is gone now.  Most of it had changed many years ago.  The Maid Rite literally collapsed on itself.   The grocery stores with their large parking lots moved or closed down and newer businesses were not so friendly, they shut their lots down after hours so there was no where to park any more.  Even the Dairy Queen had moved to a new location but, it was the same guy running it.  It was familiar and going past it always raised a few memories of the days of my youth.

A couple of months ago, the old Dairy Queen closed its doors.  The last vestige of the "glory days" faded into the past and  left me for the first time with no physical connection to my own glory days.  Just talking about it brings a lump to my throat.  It is all gone now, my youth, my good times.  Only memories remain of the days when we laughed, and partied and went out parking.  Sure, I can go pretend and do it all if I wish but, it just isn't the same when your joints are aching and not getting you high.