Dragging Broadway

When I was a teenager in Tyler, Texas, we “dragged Broadway.” That means we drove that straight stretch of four-lane street again and again at night. We started downtown at the Square and drove all the way out to Loop 323. That’s about four miles. We could do it for hours, considering that we would stop at various places along the way. A city park, the parking lot of a closed business, a hamburger shop. You get the picture.

In middle school, a neighborhood friend, Dale, and I came up with a plan for dragging Broadway without any big kid’s help. Dale would drive his dad’s Thunderbird while his parents were away one night. How Dale worked it out is complicated, but the short version is he had access to the Thunderbird. And, that meant I had access. You might call it our version of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” This was long before that movie ever appeared.

I had just finished 7^th Grade. Dale was a year older. Neither of us were big fellows. We were average-sized middle schoolers. Not tall, not short for our ages. And, we were definitely on the thin side. It is highly unlikely anyone would have ever mistaken us for high school boys. But, that did not concern us, at all. We had a night out on the town planned. In a car.

In the days leading up to our adventure, Dale started paying attention to the driver’s seat in the Thunderbird.  Dale quickly realized he could not see over the steering wheel very well. So, he decided that he would set some pillows on the seat to help him get a better view. That was an easy problem to solve.

I am not sure if I ever asked Dale if he could drive. If you knew Dale, you would understand. He was a confident dude. If he said he could do something, you just knew he could.  

So, on a hot summer night, a Saturday night, we took off. I told my mother and stepfather that I was hanging out at Dale’s. So, we were cleared for takeoff.

While I rode “shotgun,” Dale pulled slowly away from his parent’s home.  We were several miles from Broadway, about half-way across our small city, so we cruised along many streets making our way toward downtown Tyler. Anxious to get on our way, we left well before dark. With the radio playing and the windows down low, life was good.

Once we reached Broadway, we started dragging up and down the street. Just like the big kids. I have no idea if anyone noticed that we looked awfully young to be in a car on our own. We had our first big scare while stopped at a stoplight in front of Bergfeld Park. A police car pulled up behind us. Dale stayed calm, sat up straight, and strained to look over that steering wheel. The police apparently paid no attention to us, fortunately.  And, we drove on and on.

After we had our fill of Broadway, Dale turned the Thunderbird toward home.  When we arrived, he parked it precisely where his dad last parked it. We felt great. We had pulled it off.

Then, Dale decided that we needed to figure out how to erase some miles from the odometer. We gave it some thought, realized we knew nothing about such things and let it go.

The good news is Dale’s parents never realized the car had ever left its parking spot. And, I made my way home without my mom and stepdad having any concerns, either. 

In the years ahead, I dragged Broadway countless times with friends and on my own. I had a license to drive by then and all went well. Dale and I never took the Thunderbird out again. Maybe, we did not want to risk failure. We made a plan, we carried it out, we succeeded. We had a great story to tell, but we could not tell it.  Well, I just did.