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This is still done in cities with a big Hispanic population, where on any given weekend you'll see a gathering of souped up hoopties with expensive wheels and hydraulics meeting in a parking lot somewhere and then cruising together around town. It's primarily young Hispanic guys showing off their rides.
I left New Mexico ten years ago but recently went back to visit, and they're still at it. It was a Saturday afternoon and suddenly there was a large herd of these cars rolling through town. I think they're fun to look at. You will see them around Albuquerque, Espanola, and down south in Las Cruces.
Just last week, a cousin of a cousin was recalling an evening spent "cruising 'The Boulevard'", in Picayune, Mississippi, half-a-CENTURY back, almost to the day. He was sixteen, and had driven his great-grandmother and sister to visit his great aunt.
The Anita-Bryant-lookalike aunt should have been a movie star. She was a sensation in 1950s Dallas (back then, they made "foundations" capable of harnessing the abundance of women like her, and aiming it into space, like rockets), and was on her way out to California, but then married the richest boy back home, then divorced him and married the other richest boy around. At the time of the cruise, the first richest boy was almost finished becoming a broke alcoholic, and the second richest boy was engaged in losing his third fortune, via violent alcoholism. The aunt had ascended to the status of Bible-thumper Extraordinaire - and it was hard to stand-out as a Bible-thumper, in Picayune, Mississippi, given that there's so much competition(I'd link to the snarky Kate Campbell Blues song, 'Jesus is Lord of Picayune', but YouTube is showing ads for prostitutes, AGAIN - probably because Picayune is between Biloxi and New Orleans, and YouTube AI is probably savvy enough to know that the keywords, 'Jesus', plus 'Picayune' equals eager consumers of 'Cat').
Anyway, sternly urged to do so, by the aunt and the great-grandmother, the poor sixteen-year-old (whose elders desperately wanted him to "find uh guuuuuuuuhl!" - find a girl) (...and "fit-in an' be naaaaaawuhmuhl!" - fit-in and be normal)(this, in a family kicked-out of a ritzy Presbyterian Church, and forced to join the 'Primitive Baptists', because a great-great-great aunt had gotten knocked-up when taken on a carriage ride, in 1880s Bastrop, Louisiana: some families are apparently content to repeat their fatal mistakes, until The Second Coming puts an end to it all) , drove his drug-addicted fourteen-year-old sister, and the aunt's fifteen-year-old alcoholic daughter, up and down "The Boulevard", in his great-grandmother's Vomit Green Mercury Comet.
"Paisley and Solange were both smoking cigs, both drunk, both vomiting out of windows, both vomiting INTO the insides of the doors, and both desperate to meet boys. Presumably, had they caught any boys, there would have been all sorts of illegality. But in a Vomit Green Comet, they were out-of-luck. They were generating no interest from males in the other cars cruising The Boulevard. Thank heavens we weren't in my brand-new Forest Green Cutlass! Between yelling at people on The Boulevard, and vomiting, Paisley and Solange held an obscene running commentary about our great-grandmother and her dog, which THEY thought was hilarious. Later, they poured cheap perfume around, hoping to disguise the smell of the booze and the vomit.
It made a pretty-good Anti-skank inoculation, for me. After that, my tolerance for smoking was dialed-down-to-ZERO. My tolerance for druggies, became nil. And my feelings about girls, were dialed straight-down... into UNTER NULL - less-than-zero. Back home, Gerti had just introduced us to William F. Buckley, and half our school was carpooling in limousines. So, being dragged down into that Picayune mess, may have provided just enough trauma.
You know, I almost got into a Twilight Tandem marriage with Constance Scotsbridge - her family's lands abutting ours, and her grandfather being the other notoriously miserly Scottish millionaire in our parts. She wore plaid ballgowns and no makeup: PERFECT! ...third-generation Foxcroft girl... Their jade came from Gump's, and her mother had the most exquisite Chinese antiques - not ornate export stuff, but restrained pieces from Imperial residences. We would have gotten 'The Original House', which looked airlifted from Scotland - and so big the DAR hosted a convention, there, in the '50s. But then I saw her smoking and doing drugs, and, thanks to my evening CRUISING in Picayune, my inoculation kicked-in, and Constance never got a second chance."
All the 16 to 19-year-olds are in their parents basement staring at their phones. Half probably don’t have a drivers license and those that do would still rather take a Uber or Lyft.
I cruise every chance I get. Both me and kids love it. One of the few reasons to live in this country. Plenty of good roads and amazing views.
I always bought cars most suitable for comfortable road trips.
Currently want to add a Lexus lx570 to my fleet to do light off-roading, camping.
Austin MN early 70's. Main St downtown and later at night Todd Park. Lots of innocent fun.
I guess that could be why I like road trips so much like you Dave.
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