I guess the statute of limitations has run out on this by now – so I can shed a little light on the great places in the Parish you could take your sweetie to get a little sugar. And I’m not talking about the type that Godchaux puts in the sack.
The first and most obvious was the Ruston Drive-in on Old Highway 80 out west of town near Grambling. I can’t remember how many surfer movies I went to – but missed seeing, but it was a bunch. I was always appreciative that Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello seldom broke any new cinematic ground. That way I could describe to Mama the plot of the movie having never really seen it. My movie review to Mama went something like this:
“See, all the teenagers are on the beach and this one guy runs up and yells ‘Surf’s up!’ and they all tear off and go surfing. Annette got mad at Frankie for flirting with this blonde. Don’t you think Annette is good looking? Wow, I sure do!”
Wednesday night at the drive-in was buck night. I think they called it that because all the “does” stayed home. That was so the bucks could see how many they could sneak in the trunk of their Plymouth. You got what you paid for on buck night too. If any of those movies made it to DVD, I’ll buy you a case of Orange Julius.
Then there was the fog fun and run game. That was when you got out and walked around hoping you could find a buddy’s car with the windows all fogged up. Once you did, you banged on his trunk and screamed “HEY!” in your most adult/parent/cop sounding voice and run away. It was all cool though. They couldn’t be watching the movie either, not through all that fog.
The ballpark was another good place. Although you knew it wasn’t cool to kiss with your eyes open, you had to keep at least one eye open to watch for a police car. The smart ones would point their car towards the exit and were moving out of there when the police arrived. “Just leaving officer, turns out there’s no game tonight…”
Then there was tenny shoeing. Tim Brown, a doctor’s kid, told our ball team how it worked. “You see, we all wear our tenny shoes and go out to the ballpark and look for a car with the most fog on the windows. Then we all line up and yell “GO!” run screaming over the car then split off in opposite directions like jets at Barksdale. By the time they know we’re there; we’re long gone.”
Well, it wasn’t a hard concept to grasp, and provided you didn’t get shot, seemed like a harmless prank. Luckily back then the cars were a little bit more rugged – meaning your foot wouldn’t go through the hood when you stepped on it. Tim said it was a 3-step process. The first step was on the trunk, second on the roof, and third on the hood, and then you peel off like the Air Force Thunderbirds at a Holiday in Dixie air show. We swore a blood oath never to tell anybody about this for 40 years or unless one of us began writing for a newspaper- whichever came first.
As memory has it; our truckload of Converse Commandos proceeded one night to the ballpark to carry out our mission. Luckily, no one got shot or even hurt and I pretty much took that as a sign not to press my luck like that again.
Randy lives in Minden. He can be reached at planorand@yahoo.com.