Back in the Sixties

BY MARY LOU PEDERSON

Back in the day when, if you were cool, you had a set of spongy dice hanging on your car mirror and you cruised up and down Main Street looking for chicks — and you weren’t cool until you had one of those chicks snuggling right up against you, smooching away — I recall a humorous incident.

Well, my brother, Mel, which he thought was cooler than Melvin, had just gotten his driver’s license. My mother needed something from the grocery store, so she slipped into the car on the passenger’s side. I hailed them down before they left.

I wanted to go downtown for a Tab with a friend. Now Tab was probably the first diet soda that came out. It was really cool to have a diet soda with your doughnut. Mother scooched over into the center and I hopped in on the passenger’s side.

Mel dropped me off at the local café downtown and the rest of the story was told to me by my mother.

Mother had failed to move back over to the passenger side and they were cruising down Main Street. My brother didn’t seem to notice for a ways down Main Street that he had his mother closely sitting next to him.

When he finally realized it, he said to mother, almost in shock by now, “Move over, Ma! I don’t want anyone to see me cruising down Main Street with my mother sitting next to me!”

Oh ya, that would have made him the laughing stock of the whole town. Can’t get a girl, Mel?

My mother hadn’t thought about moving over until he blurted that command out and she got a big kick out of it.

I thought it was hilarious that neither of them realized that they were within such close proximity to each other and it was Friday night, the night for cruising for chicks!

Well, I don’t know if he ended up with one or not, but the story is worth retelling.