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Wow! Found a pic of my high school hangout. 1950s.

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trof Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 01:11 PM
Original message
Wow! Found a pic of my high school hangout. 1950s.

The legendary Sky Castle behind Eli's Drive-In

The Sky Castle was a completely glassed in broadcast booth atop a one story concrete block structure.
It was on the edge of the parking lot of Eli's Drive In Restaurant on the south side of Birmingham, AL.

You could sit in your car, listening to rock & roll on the radio, and watch the damn DJ playing it.
There was a telephone on the side of the building you could use to call the DJ and make a request.
"And now here's Buddy Holly and the Crickets with 'Maybe Baby' going out for Dave and his sweet, sweet, sweetie Carol."

Way cool.

And the carhops were on roller skates.
Them wuz the days.
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Lars39 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 01:21 PM
Response to Original message
1. That is cool! Looks like fun.
Heck, nowadays you're doing good if there is a live dj that says the name of the song and/or group.
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trof Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 01:52 PM
Response to Reply #1
5. It was the epitome of cool.
At school the next Monday, "Hey, Tommy Charles (the DJ) played 'Don't Be Cruel' for me and Carol."
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BurtWorm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 01:28 PM
Response to Original message
2. How much did a date cost?
How much did it cost to fill a tank of gas?

(I know that about 10 years later, you could have filled a tank with about $5.)
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RebelOne Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 01:38 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. If I remember correctly, the most you would pay
for a gallon of regular gas was 35 cents. And gas stations would have gas wars where it went as low as 10 cents a gallon.
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BOSSHOG Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 01:59 PM
Response to Reply #3
7. Gas Wars were great
You could top off with the change in your pocket. And back then you could get a whole set of dishes just getting gas at the same station.
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trof Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 01:50 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. I seem to remember less than 5 bucks.
A movie was less than a dollar.
And that was at the big, rococo movie palace 'downtown'.
You could sure get a burger, fries, and a Coke for about the same.
Gas was 18 or 19 cents a gallon.
Plus they'd pump it and clean your windshield, headlights, outside mirrors (if any), check the air in your tires, and your oil and radiator levels. Every visit to a filling station was like a NASCAR pit stop.

Oh and there were usually free gifts like glasses or coffee mugs.
My mom even had a charge account at our regular place so I could just put it on the tab.
Credit cards did not exist.
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BurtWorm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 02:10 PM
Response to Reply #4
11. *sigh*
:cry:
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BOSSHOG Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 01:57 PM
Response to Original message
6. The Old Drive In
where my girlfriend and I invented oral sex in 1970 is now a freaking Wal-Mart. I used to get an erection just driving by it (the drive in)
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marzipanni Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 02:42 PM
Response to Reply #6
16. Before that, there was this
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trof Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 02:55 PM
Response to Reply #6
18. Uh...I don't think you invented it. I remember back in '59...
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BOSSHOG Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 03:05 PM
Response to Reply #18
22. Oh come on trof give credit where credit is due
I knew I should have gotten the copyrights.
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trof Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 02:02 PM
Response to Original message
8. Tommy Charles was the DJ, and his foil was Chesney Beemish.
Somehow Tommy had a 2-mic hookup where he could carry on a dialog with himself, but the responses sounded like one of Alvin's chipmunks.
Like a 33 record played at 45 rpm.
We thought Chesney was hilarious.
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Oeditpus Rex Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 02:07 PM
Response to Original message
9. This was a little pre-me
I was born in '56 and I went there as a kid, but by the time I got into cruising South Main, it'd been torn down. :(
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trof Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 02:08 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. American Graffiti?
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Oeditpus Rex Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 02:15 PM
Response to Reply #10
13. Almost
Those scenes were shot at the one in San Francisco. It was on Van Ness near the Skyway.

This one was on South Main in Salinas, between Acacia and Hawthorne. I can still taste the burgers and the cherry Cokes. If you knew the soda jerk, you got extra cherry. :D

http://www.melsdrive-in.com/
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TheMightyFavog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 02:14 PM
Response to Original message
12. And back then it was all vynil. No CDs.
Edited on Wed Mar-28-07 02:14 PM by JonathanChance
I occasionally get to play vynil at 90FM. In fact, I'm one of the only student DJs who knows how to play vynil.

Our only copy of Sandanista! is on vynil.

Also ran into an interesting Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees record that looked like a 33 but was actually a 45. I discovered that it was a 45 just seconds before I was due to play it. Lucky for me. I had already had the turntable set at 33.
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TheMightyFavog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 02:21 PM
Response to Original message
14. Marinette, WI's very own Mickey-Lu Bar-B-Q Still in Operation.
Best hamburgers in this great state.

http://www.jldr.com/micklu.html

When I was there, they had an old jukebox that played 45s, Including a vintage Sun 45 of Jerry Lee Lewis. According to this site, they're working on getting the table controllers working again.
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JitterbugPerfume Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 02:23 PM
Response to Original message
15. ours was called Howards drive -in
you could cruise Broad Street a couple of times, and then go out to Howards, and you were bound to find something (someone) of interest there.
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trof Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 02:53 PM
Response to Reply #15
17. We had a regular traffic pattern.
At one end of the block was The Pig Trail Inn (barbecue) drive in.
At the other end was Dale's HideAway (burgers).
I wonder how many hundreds of miles we put on the car cruisin' that big figure 8?

I figured out you could empty a pint milk carton, rinse it out good, and fill it with beer.
Just sippin' and cruisin' and the cops would smile and wave.
"Look, Ed. Must be on the football team. He's drinkin' milk."

Drinkin' and drivin' was cool then.
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JitterbugPerfume Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 03:03 PM
Response to Reply #17
20. you could not get across Broad street on a week end
It was the main drag, and the coppers tried to close us down --tell us we couldn't cruise but the hormonal urge proved stronger than the law

AND we had sheer numbers!:hi:
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trof Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 04:41 PM
Response to Reply #20
24. I remember hormones.
I'm glad mine are all used up.
The things they made you do.
whew
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trof Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 02:56 PM
Response to Original message
19. Oh, and that '56 (I think) Chevy was probably new then.
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RetroLounge Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 03:03 PM
Response to Original message
21. It was SuperDawg for us


http://www.superdawg.com/history.cfm

RL
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xchrom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-28-07 03:10 PM
Response to Original message
23. sigh -- drive-ins.
man -- that pic is sooo sweet.
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