I don't have enough time to do a proper post on just how damn cool I think it must have been to be a teen in 1969-70, too young for the draft, hanging with friends in a cheap car, with cheap gas, paid for with a gas station mechanic job changing oil, tires, batteries, and having a LOT of fun on weekends with friends
Neon, great fries and burgers, shakes and ice cream cones, seeing who else showed up to hang out as planned, seeing what cars were getting shown off
Eventually, however, drive-in restaurants went into decline, replaced by the introduction of the drive-through, which negated the need for hiring carhops and saved on money and time.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/timley-return-drive-in-restaurant-180974973
Life was good and the future was bright. I turned 16 in 1961, new drivers license and I already had my '39 Ford (w/a '50 Merc flathead). The jobs in the gas stations consisted mostly of sitting around waiting for customers, running out & pumping gas, washing windows (and checking out the driver's short skirt if you were lucky!). Pay wasn't much, but gas was 25 cents a gallon and couple of gallons could get you through the weekend. Friday and Saturday nights were spent cruising the drive-ins around Northern NJ. Kinda looking for girls, but usually cruising through looking for someone for a quick 1/4 mile run on a back road somewhere. Most of it was BS, didn't happen very often. By '63, when I graduated from high school, I had a '55 Ford TwoDor hardtop, Hurst shifter on the floor, with a 272, straight pipes, & a Carter AFB. Way over carbureted, but it made for a mean, lumpy idle when cruising through a drive in. Good times!
ReplyDeleteOur town still has a drive-in restaurant with car hops and the metal trays on the car windows. They seem to be doing good business now, after they had a few years where the elderly owners didn't keep regular hours.
ReplyDelete