Chattanooga: Cruising to dances, movies was popular in '60s and '70s

By: Clint Cooper
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Chuck Wilson of Flintstone, Ga., said he wouldn’t consider taking his first car date until he had a proper car in which to take it.

The family’s 1967 Rambler American, with its manual transmission shifter on the steering column, wouldn’t do, he said.

Finally, Mr. Wilson said, “my dad felt pity on me and purchased a ’74 Rally Nova automatic with a bench seat for close seating, and then I was set.”

Dances, movies and other tame settings were popular destinations for Chattanooga baby boomers who had their first dates in the 1960s and 1970s.

“One of my first dates was very parent- sponsored at the (Chattanooga Golf &) Country Club in Riverview,” said Beth Semmer Massey of Chicago, who was 13 at the time. “It was a dance that many of us who took ballroom dancing lessons together in North Chattanooga went to.

“I remember what my dress looked like and the corsage I was given,” she said. “I was taller than my date, but that didn’t matter to us. We had been friends since we were 4.”

Patricia Martin Alamutu of Atlanta said her first date was to Howard High School’s junior-senior prom at Memorial Auditorium.

Her parents were very strict, she said, and she was not allowed to date much. Occasionally, she said, a boy was allowed to visit her home.

“I absolutely loved boys, but they were not very interested in me,” Mrs. Alamutu, 58, said.

She said she doesn’t remember her date’s name, but “I do remember his face. He was handsome, and I was delighted he asked me.”

Mrs. Alamutu said she was a substitute for her date’s girlfriend, who was too ill to attend the prom. He asked his girlfriend permission to take her to the prom, and she approved, Mrs. Alamutu said.

“I made my own formal dress,” she said. “It was a beautiful sky blue made of something like the modern fabric dupioni (a shimmering silk fabric created by weaving silk threads of two different colors into a weave that seems to change colors as the silk is moved around in different lights), and lace.”

For the prom, Mrs. Alamutu said she double-dated with Mary Watkins, a friend and classmate. However, when their dates were 45 minutes late to pick them up, they called a cab because her mother was going to rescind her permission for Mrs. Alamutu to go if the dates were an hour late.

“We eventually saw our dates at the prom, and they even gave us flowers to wear,” she said. “We danced with them and chatted with them, but we also took a cab home without them. When we returned home, my mom told us the guys had come to pick us up around 8:30 p.m.”

Sandi Stafford of Chattanooga also double-dated, with her sister, for her first date. She was 14 and her sister 16 months older.

“As I recall,” she said, “we drove up to the Twin Star Restaurant (a drive-in on Access Road), where all teenagers came to socialize. We pulled into the parking place, ordered a cherry coke, got out of the car and just sat on the hood. Everyone just talked, bragged and laughed. Many loves started and ended at the Twin Star.”

Vickie Caylor Webster said her aunt set her up with a co-worker’s son for her first date when she was 14. Her date was 16, she said, and she isn’t sure he thought of it as a date.

“His family owned a huge farm in Cleveland, so we saddled up a couple of horses and galloped across wide open pasture land for hours.” she said. “I was in heaven. We stopped at a stream and ate watercress, back when drinking out of a stream posed no real health threat.

“Afterward,” Ms. Webster said, “we enjoyed a light supper at his parents’ antique-filled home. It was a visual delight. Although the boy and I made no real connection, the experience provided fond memories for a lifetime.”

Once he had the Nova, Mr. Wilson said he asked his high school girlfriend to go to a movie and a bite to eat on a Sunday afternoon.

“I showed up in my best plaid bell-bottom pants and platform shoes, and we went to see the movie “What’s Up Doc” at the old Showcase Cinema (on Brainerd Road),” he said. “We probably went to Long John Silver’s for food. I’m not sure, but I know we went there a lot because it was cheap and I didn’t have much money.

“It was a bit awkward meeting the parents and that whole scene, but we went on to date for several years and I still have fond memories of those times.”

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