I would be so interested to know how far back people have been Cruising the Butte, Bruising the Bricks! I know its been for a very long time. My mom said she and her girlfriends spent as much of their life cruising, as I did in the 70s. I would go and pick up my best friend Sonja, pull up to her house honk the horn. She would grab her shoes, and off we would go.
There are some specific things one must have done to properly Cruise the Butte, such as flip a U turn at 11th street, and again on first street. One must honk at all their friends, and heck sometimes to people you don’t even know just to get them honking. Don’t forget to wave to all the people sitting at Slagle on the wall. Occasionally one must have had a Chinese fire drill, which involves PUTTING THE CAR IN PARK, and everyone running around the car and getting back in, before the light turned green. One must have always tried, when going across 10th to get to the U turn, and through the light all during one green light. Your timing had to be just right. In the 70s it was not uncommon to see someone’s tush in the window. My handle on the CB was moon mobile, I have no idea how that happened.
A little playful racing was going on from time to time, the sidewalks were smaller then, so we had 4 lanes all the way up the Butte, and always: windows down, music up. Either tuning in to KCOW or later in the evening, KOMA in Oklahoma City. When the 8 track players came out, that was the bomb too. My Led Zeppelin, American Graffiti, and Tommy James and the Shondells tapes took a beating. Just when I got a big ol’ collection of them, cassettes came along: so much smaller, easier, but then I had to get all the ones I had on 8 track.
We almost always got our gas at Derby, which was then at Third and Emerson. Sometimes limping in on fumes, so then we all got out and searched seats, floorboards and pooled the resources to put another couple gallons of gas in, and back to the Butte we would go. Mom never minded us cruising, she had fun doing it as a teenager, and she always knew where to find us!