Cruisin' Main in Forsyth

Another Saturday night in Forsyth and it's looking pretty dead downtown.

I remember when "cruising" was really a big deal. Driving around endlessly, listening to music on our tape decks, pulling over into parking lots to talk to our friends, and honking and waving at girls. Back and forth up and down Main Street for hours. Hoping that special girl would return your wave. If she did, and especially if she smiled, that meant you could flash your headlights at her, which was a signal for her to pull over somewhere to talk, which could (if all the stars were aligned) lead to her getting into your car for a cruise or two.

Like many social situations, the path to cruising fun was littered with land mines. There was always the risk that, when you gave a girl the lights, she would ignore you. At that point it was up to you to decide: Did she just miss seeing the signal? If you were pretty sure she did, you could flash again the next time you saw her. But this was risky: If she ignored the signal a second time, it was the ultimate cruising humiliation, a total rejection. Proof that she had no use for you.

If you successfully pulled a girl over and then got her into your car, the next step was to get rid of all the other people in the car. Fortunately, they were usually cooperative. "Wow, I said I'd be home by 9:30...better drop me off, man."

It was a fun game to play, and even if you didn't win at it, you still had a pretty good consolation prize: An evening of socializing with your friends and listening to great music.

Kids now don't cruise that much. This town used to hop at night, but these days it's much more sedate. I'm not really sure what the young people do for fun. Sit around and watch videos? Listen to music on iPods? Update their MySpace pages? Play video games? Somehow staring at various TV screens all the time seems sort of boring. Of course I'm staring at one as I type this, so what do I know?

I still enjoy just driving around. I'm lucky to have a wife who enjoys it, too. I have a much better car stereo now, too. It's a little less fun these days because of the gas prices, but that doesn't matter too much, because there are no girls cruising Main tonight anyway. Even if there were, honking and waving at them could put me in jail (or divorce court).