Cruising dead or are we old?

It's been a while since I just cruised around town on a Friday night. Everyone is out on Friday night! I drove through all the hangouts but didn't see anyone. I went down the avenue. Man was it dead. No bumper to bumper cars. No one's out on the corners and all the girls must be in the Mary Ann Theater or Dave's and Debs Roller Rink. Cruised by Shell never seen a soul. Cruised back behind the flood wall. Maybe everyone is doing a little street racing? Nope! No one sitting in Riverside IGA either. What gives? I don't even see Mark Kaufman's blue Chevy pick 'em up truck driving up and down the ave. I head back to Newport. I don't know anyone walking the streets. Seems like yesterday there where corners full of people I know standing around with a big grins on their faces like they know something no one else does. Hot rods cruising the streets if not parked on the corners so they can hang out. All I see now are these skinny, sunkin' eye looking crack heads. I'll just move on down to Monmouth St. All the neon lights are out on the strip bars. It must be later than I thought. No two lanes of cars cruising the strip. Seems strange. No one hanging out in White Castles parking lot either. One place that is still open is Gourmet. I'm always down for some Greek food. I park the 'Bird right in front so I can see it from my seat. It's also cool to see the 2X4's and mag wheel reflection from the plate glass windows before you get out. It never fails that when a friend drives down Monmouth and see's someones car they know, they stop. Before too long you have a booth full of people. Tonight I ate alone. Only comfort was the waitress that has worked there for years knows how I order my food without me saying so. Steve the Greek was not there tonight either. He's always there!!?? Walking back out to the hot rod I look up and down the street. Not a car in site. I could lay right in the middle of the two lane and no one would even see me. Even at 5 a.m. Monmouth Street has traffic. Looking around I remember watching the Twilight Zone one time where this guy was stuck in a town with no one else in it. That's where I must be... No wait a minute. These thoughts are over 20 years old. I'm not in the Twilight Zone I'm just old and time has flew past me without me blinking. Newport is bare of hot rods, girls, friends and people in general. Only people I see are lurking in the shadows. Zombie looking dopers that have me un snapping my holster in case one tries to stab & rob me for a couple bucks. What time is it? Midnight on a Friday night. It looks like marshal law was declared and everyone has a 10pm curfew. Wow. How things change. I don't have many regrets in my life. I had a great time. I just wish I could do them all over again!

Is to be alot or cruising here in glasgow. People use to come from the surrounding counties but the local police has ran everyone off due to all the meatheads causing problems.

Unfortunately, both cruising is dead and we are old! I have noticed that the younger generation, in gereral, are not as interested in and/or forced in to being as mechanically enclined as some of the previous generations. In lieu of fixing up there parents old hand me down cars they are just driving stock late models. I have also noticed that the younger generation, in general, are more interested in sex, drugs, and alcohol than previous generations.

Cops in A-town give out loitering tickets for hanging in parking lots and to many cops are here locally to do anything.

mama and I were out yesterday, along with Jerry and Shelia, but it was not at all late....we hang out till 11 or 12 about every Sat, here on the WEST SIDE of Hamilton, at Rockin Rick Cruise In.....

Nice pics John. You guys need to find a good back drop and take some pics with those two cars in it.

I spend my Friday nights at work!! I'm not old just lame

There's a few cruisers around Minneapolis, but the burger joint that was the gearhead Mecca since '53 closed about a year ago. Some of us newbies are still at it though!

Welcome to the days of Electronics

In the past buying/building a car was a top priority for our young people who were old enough to tinker with there cars and drive, however recently this trend has been slowly declining. Now our younger generation tend to rate electronic equipment such as computers/games and mobile phones as things they must have or buy. For example, my Son would rather have a new large Flat Panel Screen TV than install new fuel injectors in his car. He views his car as getting to work and back, than hang out with friends like he used to do.

I remember in my day that the only options that we had, was to watch 6 or 7 channels on the TV and most of the time, our parents were watching what they wanted to. We only had one TV in the house. We had no Cell Phones or any high tech equipment. I would go down to the local junk yard and pick out a car and rebuild it for a year or so, just to know about cars.

I see the same things around here in Florence. You can cruise any main road and not see a hot rod for a long while. If you do, all they want to do is race on the interstate for money. Of course there are some local car clubs that hangout at Turfway Park. But that is all they do, they don't go cruising at all. Money is always an issue. Our economy has put a stoppage in our running around.

Same here. All the kids run around in their ricers with the bass thumping and I just don't get it. It's Hell getting old!

Count all the ones that you remember- not the ones you were told about!

Ratings are at the bottom

* Blackjack chewing gum
* Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
* Candy cigarettes
* Soda pop machines that dispensed bottle
* Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
* Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
* Party lines
* Newsreels before the movie
* P.F. Flyers
* Butch wax
* Telephone numbers with a word prefix (Olive - 6933)
* Peashooters
* Howdy Doody
* 33 RPM records
* S&H Green Stamps
* Hi-fi's
* Metal ice trays with lever
* Mimeograph paper
* Blue flashbulb
* Packards
* Roller skate keys
* Cork popguns
* Drive-ins
* Studebakers
* Wash tub wringers
* Using hand signals for cars without turn signals
* Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young

If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older

If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age

If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!

Well, I'm older than dirt!

Remember --

- When it took five minutes for the TV to warm up.
- When nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids arrived home from school.
- When nobody owned a purebred dog.
- When a quarter was a decent allowance.
- When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny.
- Running through the sprinkler, circle pins, bobby pins, Mickey Mouse Club, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Kookla, Fran & Ollie, Spin & Marty...(BEEP) Clark's American Bandstand ... all in black and white and your Mom made you turn it off when a storm came.
- When around the corner seemed far away, and going downtown seemed like going somewhere.
- Climbing trees, making forts, backyard shows, lemonade stands, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, staring at clouds, jumping on the bed, pillow fights,ribbon candy, angel hair on the Christmas tree, Jackie Gleason, white gloves, walking to the movie theater, running till you were out of breath, laughing so hard that your stomach hurt...remember that?
- Not stepping on a crack or you'd break your mother's back ... paper-chains at Christmas, silhouettes of Lincoln and Washington, the smells of school, of paste.
- What about the girl who dotted her i's with hearts? (that was before that stupid smiley face)!
- Remember when there were just two types of sneakers for girls and boys - Keds and PF Flyers, and the only time you wore them at school was for gym. And the girls had those ugly gym uniforms.
- When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking -- all for free -- every time! And, you didn't pay for air either, and you got trading stamps to boot!
- When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents.
- When the worst thing you could do at school was flunk a test or chew gum.
- When they threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed -- and did!
- When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home. Basically, we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was so much greater than the threat.
- Remember when a '57 Chevy was everyone's dream car -- used to cruise, peel out, lay rubber?
- When people went steady; and girls wore a class ring with an inch of wrapped Band-Aids, dental floss, or yarn coated with pastel-frost nail polish so it would fit their finger.
- When no one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the car and house doors were never locked!
- Remember lying on your back on the grass with your friends and saying things like "That cloud looks like a..." And playing baseball with no adults needed to enforce the rules of the game.
- Remember when stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals, because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger.

I was at 12

SMOKNZ wrote:Count all the ones that you remember- not the ones you were told about!

Ratings are at the bottom

* Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.

I still do that. lol

RebStew wrote:

SMOKNZ wrote:Count all the ones that you remember- not the ones you were told about!

Ratings are at the bottom

* Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.

I still do that. lol

I use hand signals sometimes, but not for that....

I saw that they're making the PF Flyer name again. It was at a couple of up scale shoe stores. They still had the dot on the sole to keep your pants legs from catching on fire.

How about:
Fleix the Cat and Heckle & Jeckle

Burger Chef and Red Barn hamburgers

Black and White Saddle shoes for guys

Farful the Nestles Quick Dog

Buster Brown and his dog Tige "They live in your shoes"

Drag cars with tow brackets

Abbott & Costello, Ed Sullivan, Wild Kingdom

Oldsmobile's "Ask the man who own's one"

Diana Shore for Chevy "See the USA in your.....

SMOKNZ wrote:
* Using hand signals for cars without turn signals

I still use hand signals when driving the '47 Stylemaster and/or when road driving the tractor. Althought, I asumme that most people do not understand hand signals anymore, most people wave when you signal a right hand turn.

I would like to thank SMOKNZ, reading this made me realize how much things have changed, for the worse, in the last twenty years of so.

FalconEddie1964 wrote:Oldsmobile's "Ask the man who own's one"

Wasn't that Packard? Spent a lot of my early years in the back of a Packard. Wish I had any of my Dad's old Packards. I remember three of them, then a 59 Desoto Then a Rambler (never did figure that one out) then the 64 Coupe deVille. See a pattern here? His last car is a 78 Lincoln Town Car. Last of the lead sleds. He still has it and still drives it.

Yeah, I Googled it and it was Packard.......I guess after all these years the important stuff gets mixed up. LOL

How about those old stamps they used give with purchases that were redeamible at some special store......T V Stamps or Top Value stamps I believe. We used to give them out at the Sohio station I worked at. I think they were 10 for a dollar, unless you were good lookin. Man, they'd all stick together in the rain..they were a real hassle.

I remember 18 of the things on that list, and I can tell you that being older than dirt ain't so bad. My oldest son (21) can buy me beer. My youngest son is 10, works on my '49 with me, loves the Rolling Stones, and still thinks I'm the coolest. My wife is 33, beautiful, HATES rap music, loves fat fender cars, and evidently is turned on by a guy older than dirt! ...I don't see a down side!

I've been waved at too. I hand signaled a left turn, while waiting for a break in oncoming traffic, and as I made the turn, the guy behind me drove up real close to my rear bumper, blew his horn, yelled "Thank you!" (well that's what it sounded like to me), and waved at me...while indicating that I was #1! People are so darn friendly here in Newport!

S&H Green stamps here. Mom always dragged me along when she went to cash them in. It's a mexican tire store now.

mama and I went out for some Coney dogs and root beer after the cruise in tonight.....