Cruising Beach Street, Santa Cruz 1960
đżREMEMBERING
Santa Cruz, the spring of 1960, and the four of us girls were cruising Beach Street as we had every Friday night since Marcie Bell had been unwisely granted a license to drive in the State of California. Easter week, and school was out. We were off the leash, untethered and looking for trouble. Marcie was the only one who had a car, a brilliant birthday present from her dad that made us all so envious we were on the verge of orgasms every time we slid into the back seat.
The entire street was jammed, bumper to bumper, west to east. Every one between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five had the same idea in mind â cheap, salacious entertainment.
We were hanging our arms out of the blue and white â55 Chevy Bel Air convertible, shamelessly waving and shouting remarks at the boys that we wanted to meet. They revved up their motors as they passed by - a sign of virility, a manliness akin to gorillas thumping their chests. We girls loved it. We were only seventeen, juniors in high school and didnât care about how loud or how stupid we were. There was a kind of joy in making an ass of oneâs self at that age on a warm spring night at the beach in Santa Cruz.
We passed the Municipal wharf, V-8 engine purring like an alley cat on the prowl. Boys were shouting lewd remarks from a â53 two-tone Buick with portholes in the front fenders. They wolf-whistled at us from a low-riding â54 Mercury with sexy chrome-plated Lakeâs plugs. They cat-called from a â47 Ford coupe with pin-striped flames around the wheel-wells and headlights. We shouted right back and loudly sang along with the Coastersâ Charlie Brown on the car radio. âHe walks in the classroom, cool and slow, who calls the English teacher Daddy-O? Charlie Brown!â
We cruised slowly past Carniglia Bros. Fish Restaurant, past the Coconut Grove and Penny Arcade, past Mariniâs saltwater taffy and the Sno-Cones stand. The air smelled like Coppertone and cotton candy. Palm fronds rattled like maracas in the on-shore breeze high above our heads.
On the balconies of beachfront motels, college students were drinking suicidal glasses of *spolie and watching the vehicular mating rituals below. Rolling over the railroad tracks, we passed the Merry-Go-Round, the Tilt-A-Whirl, the Giant Dipper, the Bumper Cars. Down at the end of the long street we made a U-turn and cruised slowly all the way back. Then weâd do it again. This parade of blatant youthful libido went on for a couple of hours.
We found the ones we wanted, and Marcie yelled, âSteamer Lane.â The boys met us up on West Cliff Drive overlooking the ocean. We all got out of the cars and walked around, circling each other, bantering back and forth, flirting, getting back into the cars, drinking a little beer and making out in the back seat. (Not me, of course â the other girls.) Sitting in cars with boys on West Cliff at night was called âwatching the submarine racesâ in the local teenage vernacular.
We learned that they were second-year San Jose State boys, Sigma Chi boys â too old for us, making our liaison even more inappropriate and thus, more desirable. We teased and joked for a while, but they could see they wouldnât be getting any serious action from the likes of us. Oh, we were all cute and fresh and funny, but they had driven thirty-five miles across the hill to find easy girls. Santa Cruz had a lot of them, but we werenât of that tribe, so they headed back down to Beach Street to continue the hunt.
We made our way across town in the Bel Air, giggling like hyenas, no seat-belts, no air bags, and Marcie, our incompetent driver, had a buzz on. The parking lot of the 5-Spot Drive-In Restaurant was jammed, cars stacked up double deep, all the radios tuned to KDON at volume. Young men were walking around from car to car, leaning into windows, engaging in a bit of reconnaissance. Car hops attached trays to the driverâs side window ledge and took our orders for flavored fountain-cokes and french fries.
We always had a great time together, the four of us. We were all four equal on the stupidity scale, well-matched on the immaturity meter. Oh, we liked to pretend we were bad girls, but we knew how far we could go without compromising what was reverently called our âreputationâ. So we werenât really bad. Okay, maybe a little bad, but I wonât be telling you anything about that.
*If youâve never heard of âspolieâ, it was a cheap alcoholic drink favored by California college students in the early 60s â a deadly mix of Hawaiâian Punch, cheap vodka and Red Mountain burgundy. Made by the gallon, it caused the worst head-cracking, swearing off hangovers ever ⊠apparently. Donât try it!
Thank you to Scott Ocamb, who writes SCOTTâS STORIES on Substack, and whose nostalgic latest memoire, âBrian and Billyâ inspired this little Santa Cruz memory. Check it out.
We called it "Cruising The Drag" back in early 50s in Santa Cruz. It was up and down Pacific Avenue and circling around at the Crossroads just before entering Beach Street.
This is absolutely exquisite!