You remember cruising main.

Oh, it may not have been 'main'.  It might have been the loop, it might have been the neighborhood, it might just have been around town.

But it was cruising, just driving the same route over and over and over with your friends.  Radio blaring, and if memory serves correctly, never anything much new to see.

For me, the cruising was up and down main street in Edgerton, Minnesota, occasionally swinging down by the football field, over by the school, maybe down past the bowling alley.  But mostly just main.

Back in, ahem, 'those days', if you were driving a four door, well, that would be your parents car.  Yep, back in my High School days, any self respecting teenager would have to have a 2-door...oh, and it better be a hard-top! (Just to prove to myself how old I really am, one of the younger fella's here at the radio ranch had no idea what a 'hard-top' was!  If you don't, well, ask  your parents...or grand parents).  And of course, the back end had to be jacked up some, too...but not too much or the policeman,Mutt Pool, would stop you.

And you never forget that first one, that first car you bought with your very own money.  For me, it was a 1963 Chevy Impala (this, by the way, was the summer of 1972), extremely high mileage, blue smoke pouring out of the tailpipe when you 'stepped on it', burned more oil than gas, but (and this is of supreme importance) it was a 2 door..and a hard-top!

 

1963 Chevy
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It cost $500.00, of which I had $300 cash from working odd jobs (I slung a lot of bales in those days) and my Dad put in $200 which I promised I'd pay back (and, ahem, I'm pretty sure I did???).

I didn't have it too long before my brother got me a used under-dash 8-track player (if you didn't have an under-dash 8-track player you just weren't cool!).  So then, wire up those plastic Kraco speakers in the back window and starting cruising with that 'three-on-the-tree'.

That first car is long, long gone now.  When I look back on it, it was pretty well shot by the time I got it.  The engine was on it's last legs, seems I had to replace a lot of little things (we used to call it 'nickel and diming...it all costs a bit more now), but honest to goodness, I've never had a car I've loved more.

Think back to when you got your first car, I mean the first one that you actually paid for yourself.  How old were you?  What was it?  And, didn't you just think it was the coolest thing in the world?  Well, you know what?

It was the coolest thing in the world.  Your world.

 

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