Hello, In our teenage high school years, there were two major hangouts, both with great food and plenty of teenage hot rods/custom cars. (Mostly hot rods or modified stock sedans.) The good thing was that when one parking lot of the drive-in restaurant was full and no sight of a back row opening, then just around the next big street corner was another cool drive-in parking lot with tons of cars in all sorts of styles. Grissinger’s on Atlantic and San Antonio was the most popular, as it had a draw of local high school/drag race history from the early days of Bixby Knolls. The other place around the corner was Ken’s Burgers with a huge parking lot that adjoined a family restaurant owned by the same person. One side were all of the hot rods and cruisers with their bags of hamburgers, fries, Cokes, Levis and T-shirts. On the other side were the dressed up families or couples on a sit down restaurant dinner date. Yes, we did dress up and also had dinner at that place, too. The 3rd place was a few miles away if one liked the best root beer from the tap or bottles. The A&W was a neighborhood location near our high school and was a frequent stop over when we could get away from the campus during lunch. Late at night, if the craving for the best root Beer float was called for, the A&W was on the way home and a late night stop was on the menu. So, there is that craziness that allows teenagers to process those late night cravings without any consequences. Add in an order of fries to go with that root beer float...Ha! The big four door sedans were the favorites for the families and consequently, given to the girls to go out and have fun with their friends. They still cruised the two local hot spots and everyone did not criticize those giant 4 door sedans as not being hot rods. The main attraction were the occupants of those huge cruisers. Ha! The custom cars were the lowered 55 Chevy with white tuck and roll, 4 speed, chrome reversed wheels and a wild green paint. Or a similar 40 Ford set up with similar accessories that were popular at the time. Then a huge amount of Chevy sedans in all forms of custom additions and speed parts for the ”go” side. Sometimes, straight from Lion’s Dragstrip on a Saturday night, the hot drag race cars would show up and do their thing. Jnaki The only time(s) we got laughed at was during the summer hot weather season. Why? Our Chevy sedans in their modified versions had no A/C and it was all windows down for the weekly cruises. But, it was not just the windows rolled down, but we showed up with a cool turquoise green 4 door Pontiac hardtop sedan. A similar family car with 4 teenagers inside, it became a lowered cruiser and made for a cool (pun intended) vehicle for those hot nights… A/C and all… At first, all windows were rolled down so we could laugh and have our normal teenage bantering. Then after rolling out to some other place, our return was with all windows rolled up and the A/C on full blast. It was life saver in the hot cruising scene.
The Jalopy Journal
