Cruisin' With WLS In the 60's

Across the Fence #353

Let’s take a trip back to the early 60’s… The 1960’s! Slip behind the wheel of your ’57 Chevy, crank the windows down, tune the radio to 890-AM on the dial, turn up the volume, shift into gear, pop the clutch, and we’re off for a night of cruisin’ and listenin’ fun.

It’s Saturday night, the chores are done, the cows have been milked, you took a spit bath to get some of the barn smell off, put on a clean shirt, pants, and shoes, and now it’s time to howl. In my case, that meant heading to Westby and stopping at the pool hall to see who was around. That was our meeting place on Saturday nights. After a couple games of pool, we headed out to see what kind of excitement or trouble we could find. That usually meant heading north to Lloyds’ in Cashton, also referred to by my folks as “the Snake Pit.” It was an 18-year-old beer bar. You could drink beer at 18 in Wisconsin in the 1960’s.

There actually was a lowered area at Lloyds’ where you could dance. I guess you could call that the snake pit. Saturday nights also had live, local bands playing the latest hits. I’ve always wondered why we call it “a live band,” as if a “dead band” would be playing. Although there was The Grateful Dead band, but they never made it to Lloyds’. I guess we could say it was live music as opposed to jukebox music.

I was returning home from Viroqua recently after televising baseball games. It was a beautiful summer night. The sky was filled with stars, and oldies music was playing on the car radio. It transported me back to those early 1960s nights. I didn’t have a car back then. I had to “borrow” the folk’s car if I wanted to go out, meaning any place off the farm. We usually had Chevy’s, except for a Pontiac Bonneville in the early 60’s.

AM radio was the standard in those days. I don’t remember if I knew what FM radio was. Whenever I went out at night, the radio was tuned to 890-AM, WLS in Chicago. That’s where you could listen to the Top 40 hits of the day. My favorite DJ was Dick Biondi, “The Wild Italian.” Another was Larry Lujack.

I spent many Saturday nights, cruisin’ the countryside and listenin’ to Dick Biondi. Does anyone remember him singing “On Top of a Pizza,” to the tune of On Top of Old Smokey? I used to know every word and we’d belt out the song, along with Biondi, as we cruised down the highway with the moonlight casting intriguing shadows on the countryside. There was a special magic to those times that still evokes good memories. “There’s A Moon Out Tonight” by the Capris, blasting on the radio, added to the magic of the moment. Who remembers “Dedicated To the One I Love,” and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” by the Shirelles. There’s also that song that eventually drove us crazy, “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On the Bedpost Overnight?” There was “Crying” by Roy Orbison, and “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” by Ray Charles. We would also sing along with Dion as he sang “The Wanderer,” as we wandered around the back roads of Vernon County.

When I told Linda what I was writing about this week, she recalled how they would “cruise the gut” in Platteville. Main Street was a one-way street and cars would slowly cruise down the street side by side, with all the windows rolled down, as they talked back and forth until they reached the end of the street. Then they drove around and back to the top of Main and did it all over again. I suspect carloads of girls were talking to boys cruising in the other cars. We couldn’t cruise the streets of Westby side by side or we’d have been stopped and ticketed for driving on the wrong side of the highway. We just cruised over to Cashton to see what girls might be looking for a dancing partner at Lloyd’s or at Danceland between Cashton and Ontario.

I won’t go into details of our exploits or who my cruising buddies were on those Saturday night adventures, both to protect myself and my guilty friends! I’ll just say that it made it a bit awkward if one of us connected with a girl we’d like to take home, when there were three or four other guys riding in the same car. I guess we all could have driven separately, but who wants to cruise around alone?

Sometimes our night ended up like the song by The Angels, “My Boyfriend’s Back, and you’re gonna’ be in trouble!” If you asked the wrong girl to dance, a boyfriend might suddenly show up, and as the lyrics go, “So look out now cause he’s comin’ after you. Hey-la-day-la, my boyfriend’s back.” Then it was time to “Turn Me Loose” and “Hit the Road Jack.” You could always wave and say, “Save the Last Dance for Me,” as you became a “Travelin’ Man,” and cruised back to Westby with WLS radio blasting and Elvis asking, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” Sam Cooke would chime in with, “Another Saturday Night and I Ain’t Got Nobody!” But we kept on hoping and searching for that “One Fine Day,” the Chiffons sang about.

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