When I was a kid in the 1970s, our Sonic had a cool side and an extraordinarily uncool side. If Momma parked on the uncool side, my sister and I moaned, dunked in the back seat, and laid low until our Frito chili pies arrived. We truly believed our character and reputations could be boosted or ruined during the few minutes it took to wolf down an order of tater tots in a parking spot at the Sonic in Osceola, Arkansas.
When I began driving my own car, the highlight of Saturday night was circling the Sonic until a cool space opened. My best friend and I ordered giant Cokes, emptied them onto the sidewalk and refilled the cups with Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill. Or sometimes Kountry Kwencher. We thought drinking Boone’s Farm was a cool thing too.
Today I am much older. I realize I was far from hip. Even so, I can’t pull into the Osceola Sonic (now bigger, brighter, and new) without wondering if the coolness factor still exists.
And if so, could someone tell me which side is cool?
Grace Grits & Gardening
Musical Pairing:
Foreigner, Feels Like The First Time
I have forgotten which side is “cool”. Well done, Talya.
Maybe someone in Osceola will let us know! Robin L?
Well, clearly, whichever side you park on is the cool side. 🙂
Well thank you kind sir:))
Yay, Gary! Brownie points!
Oh, Talya, I’ve got a few years on you, and theree weren’t Sonics when I was a teen. However, Little Rock had a circuit that everybody drove on Saturday night, and there were TWO cool drive-ins (one at each end of the ‘circuit’). If you went to any other, you just weren’t…
And now Drive-Ins are just plain COOL! Except for the mosquito thing…
Talya, there was no Sonic when I was growing up, but Bly Kream Kastle had a cool and uncool side. On weekend nights, the N side of the KK parking lot had cars parked double (back then, they let us do that), and the S side of the parking lot was empty. Your post made me smile. If I go to the KK now, I can’t make myself park on the S side. Old habits die hard. Thanks for the b’day wishes. laurie
🙂 Yes, old habits certainly do die hard. Too bad we lost the Kream Kastles – they were the best! Hope you are enjoying your birthday.
Haa I so emptahize with ur post – thou in my case it wasnt parking . It was rather how much me-siblings-parents ‘adhered’ to norms 🙂
Ahhh yes, this take me back! I remember sneaking Boone’s Farm wine in my cups as well. We didnt have a Sonic here though, just McDonalds, which I loved. Great song by Foreigner!
Thank you Meno-Mama! I think we got our McDonald’s after Sonic…
The thing to do when I was growing up was to “cruise the Sonic”. My parents would not allow me to do this, so when I was able to hop in anyone’s car and “cruise Sonic” I thought I was such a rebel! AND, I’m pretty sure I was uncool (no matter which side I parked!) I enjoyed your post! Stopped by from AWB Sunday link-up. 🙂
Hey Boone’s Farm was way cool. Love this snippet from memory lane.
I had the Breeze Inn to circle in Osceola.
Where was it?
haha….Sonic’s Circle Drive was a very popular spot in my younger days…and the drinking of Boone’s Farm, for me, was a ‘gateway drink’…haha…to beer and occasionally whiskey…and you’re right, Talya…regrettably, it wasn’t cool, at all…not at all.=)….Anyhow, one of my funniest Sonic memories is from my early college days when me and two of my friends were in a pickup truck in Walnut Ridge, AR. As we eased into Sonic’s crowded Circle Drive, about three car spots down, the traffic came to a complete stop. I was sitting in the middle, and my ‘friend’ sitting to my right, riding shotgun, started yelling that he knew some girls standing in the “Sonic picnic area,” and for my other friend, who was driving, to honk his horn at them. So, to the continual urging of our “shotgun friend,” my “driver friend” honked his horn two or three times. As my “driver friend” and I were looking for the girls, I noticed the happy Sonic picnickers started pointing and laughing at us…about the same time, I felt a shaking motion to my right. I looked over at my friend riding shotgun, and he was bent over, ducked down, and laughing his butt off. Immediately, I realized that my driver friend and I looked like a couple of sweethearts sitting next to each other, so I grabbed my friend riding shotgun by the back of his collar and quickly yanked him up!….haha….he was laughing so hard that it got me and my driver friend tickled, as well…he was wrong for doing that, and if I’d had a shotgun for a brief moment there, I would probably have used it on my “shotgun friend.”…haha…that definitely wasn’t good…not Sonic good, at all.=)