Your Teenage Hangout

Ed Wilson

Ed Wilson

Well-known member
I bring it up because mine burned down yesterday. It was "John's" up the road on Main St. in the town I grew up in. It had a lunch counter, magazine racks and a room in back with a pin ball machine and juke box for us annoying young people. John insisted you buy something if you were just thinking of hanging around and reading the magazines which were for sale and not browsing. Weather permitting we just hung out on the corner and watched the world go by.

Old John must be rolling in his grave right now.
 
There was a main street in our town that kids called "the drag." Every weekend several blocks of the street were clogged with teenagers driving back and forth, pulling into various burger joints, and playing AM radio or 8-track tapes. There was a lot of foolishness, like people jumping out of one car at a redlight and into another car. Guys without a lot of gas money would just park in a parking lot facing the street and sit on the hood. Good times.
 
There was a few favorite places we hung out. In the summer months, we usually hung out at one of the small town parks, or at the ball diamond. At the ball diamond, we would sit on top of the hood of the car pretending to watch the ball game.;) In the winter months, we hung out at one of the local cafes’. The owner didn’t mind us hanging out there if we were not rowdy or loud. We usually played the juke box and drank a soda, if we had any money. And maybe sneak a smoke of a cigarette too, if no one was looking. That's right! We thought we were cool!🚬:cool::rolleyes:
 
We had a place called Eat Mores across the street from junior high. If if there was a dive of a place this was it.
Small, stinky with hamburger and ciggie- smoke. I would go there of morning for a smoke and a cola, sometimes for lunch.
this was the slicked back male hair do, black leather jacket, type of place your momma warned you about. I loved it, Was my hide out. Well until one day sitting on a stool,looked up to see two small blue eyes barley above the window sill,watching my every move. It was my little brother- sigh
 
Us girls were fixtures at two haunts... one a restaurant and the other a coffee shop. There we could be found during class spares and once a week (evenings), gabbing away, sipping our coffee, and smoking cigarettes.
 
I had several, since I attended high school in Stephenson, and had friends in Menominee, Michigan, and Marinette, Wisconsin. When hanging out after school, we were generally just downtown or at the Stephenson Diner, but she would sometimes kick us out early if we were done eating. I had a friend who worked full-time as a DJ even while he was in high school, and he had his own apartment in Marinette, so I'd often be there on weekends, or at the radio station when he was working. More often though, we'd be along 1st Street in Menominee. It was the old downtown district and abutted the Menominee Marina. That was where we'd go to find a bunch of other kids. In another part of Menominee was Utley's, which was, I think, the only 24-hour restaurant around.
 
The Parkeat, a drive-in restaurant near my high-school.

It was the place to see and be seen. The first stop on a Friday evening of "cruising".

Who was there? And with whom? You didn't always leave in the same car you came in.....alliances were made and unmade there.

There were tears, there were fights. Somebody was making eyes with somebody else's girlfriend; someone was perceived to be flirting with another's boyfriend. Worst yet, somebody made uncomplimentary remarks about another guy's car.

Here's a little story: we girls were having a slumber party out in the garage of a friend's house. The idea arose to push her dad's car down to the street so her parent's wouldn't hear it start, and, dressed in our "baby-doll" pj's (remember those?), "buzz" the Parkeat.

We would be a sensation! We would be legends! So, using the few teenage girl brain cells we had, off we went.

We buzzed the joint and headed back to her house. Unfortunately, the car had other ideas. Dead stop.

Luckily, we were right in front of a house of people we knew and had to go knock on their door at 11:30 pm to call her dad to come get us.

Yes, we were all in trouble but MAN! we were legends....
 
East and west Atlanta had all kinds of soda fountains, dinners, and curb service restaurants, the most famous was downtown, The Varsity.
Most boys had hot rods with loud mufflers.
 
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