Socializin' in Our Town Long Ago - Time Out #210

Our Town is full of young life again, much like the famed swallows returning each year to the historic mission at Capistrano, California.

Stillwater Public Schools and Oklahoma State University are back in their full fall sessions, and their students are everywhere around our cozy, north central Oklahoma town.

As the slowdown of the summer break has given way to the hustle and bustle of increased traffic, pedestrians all around our busy streets, and many more customers at local restaurants and stores, it reminded me way back to the days of many different types of socialization processes. As I have stated before, the 1950's and early 1960's were gentler and simpler times in Our Town. Today, at both the university and public school levels, social get-togethers and other "mixers" have been held, but these certainly are not like the days of yesteryear.

Let's start our socialization reflection back to a memorable time at Ms. Dorothy Lynch's Dance Studio on West Sixth Avenue on the north side, near South Monroe Street. It is then circa late 1950's, and a large group of my peer group and myself took regular dance classes from Ms. Lynch. The setting was her large wooden dance floor, timid boys on one side of the room, and young girls wanting to dance, waiting on the other side of the room. The dynamic, petite Ms. Lynch gently forced the young boys across the room to choose a dance partner, and, therefore, the social ice was easily broken. Yes, eventually the young boys (including me!), felt much better, with increased confidence, by going to Ms. Lynch's place, and learning a few dance moves?

Now, let's discuss the regular dance nights at Crystal Plunge Swimming Pool, just south of the Stillwater Milling Company, exit off East Sixth Avenue. Wow, the juke box was loud with that new rock 'n roll music, blaring different songs for a nickel each (or 6 plays for a quarter). The small, covered pavilion was just inside the main entrance on the west side of the pool, and the pavilion also housed the nickel, cold-pop machine that gave you a 6-ounce returnable glass bottle when you put your coin in the slot. The nickel candy machine was there, too, and you hoped the candy hadn't melted inside it's wrapper! I imagine Ms. Lynch's class experiences raised all of our dancing abilities at Crystal Plunge? Again, these experiences certainly helped our socialization process.

How about the Yost Lake Country Club (northeast of town in a rural setting) fun times? Many local folks owned cabins there, but it wasn't required to gain access. We merely rode/got a ride out there, and we would have a wonderful time with our peeps and other youngsters of Our Town.The roped-off swimming area provided immediate cooling, and the wooden wheel and wooden tower provided many hours of additional exercise for swimmers. The REAL excitement. however, were all the dances we attended in the large, wooden pavilion on the south side of the swimming area. This large structure also had one of those famous juke boxes to provide the needed music for our newly learned dance moves.

Other socialization routines were even more basic, and they didn't necessarily involve music. The biggest one that comes to mind involves cars and drive-in restaurants. One of the easiest things to do was to take your car (or your parents' car ?), or ride with someone who had a car if you weren't old enough to have your driver's license, and go park it. You would gather either at the original Sonic Drive-In on the south end, or Griff's Drive-In on the north end of Main Street. A major part of your mission was to secure the "perfect" parking spot at either eating place, so "everyone" would see you as they cruised by in their rides. Of course, these frequent interactions involving waving, yelling, or simply brief conversations, really helped mold our socialization process. There was always a steady stream of cars and pickups, moving between the 2 popular drive-in gathering spots in order to be "seen".

The last socialization place I will recall is the famous Moonlight Drive-In Movie Theater, located approximately where Pyramid Foods' parking lot is presently. The most popular night of the week for this classic movie location was "carload night", meaning a low entry fee was charged for each vehicle. It didn't matter how many people you could pack in your vehicle, only one reduced price was charged. Even at that bargain rate, however, many movie goers would put additional folks in their car trunks, get into the movie, then pull to the back row, and unload the "extra" trunk patrons there. It was total socialization time all over the crowded drive-in on those special evenings, as people would go from car-to-car, or congregate in or around the concession area to talk and be "seen".

Wow, here's to all those mentioned memories, and to the current memories being made, once again, as school gets underway in Our Town and far beyond.