Dragging the Main

[Earlene123]

Dragging the Main

American Graffiti (1973) launched the careers of many well-known actors and film directors.* The film, set in 1962 in the San Joaquin Valley town of Modesto, accurately depicts the teenage ritual of the 1950’s and 1960’s in other California Valley towns known as “dragging the main”--later known as “cruising”. Fresno, the central hub of the Valley, certainly had its own Main Street. Fulton Street was the retail heart of Fresno and the drag route began at one end of Fulton and ended at Stan’s Drive-In at the other. I would discover about a decade later when I first went to Europe to do research that “dragging” was an adaptation to the American car culture of an older Southern European teen ritual known in Italy as the “passeggiata.”
My participation in the ritual dated to one summer between my high school graduation and my entrance into college in 1956. I had graduated at age sixteen from Theodore Roosevelt High School and was a California Scholarship Federation Life Member. My girlfriends, though between their junior and senior years in high school, were my age or a little older. They were good students as well, most of them C.S.F. honor students. That summer on days that we could, especially on the weekends, we would pile into my best friend’s mother’s car, an older blue car, circa 1950 Ford sedan, and go downtown to cruise Fulton. Many of the guys were showing off their cars, especially cars with hot engines, something my brother Arnold and his friends would soon do. We would listen to the special request station playing Elvis’ hits. He had five in the Top 10 that year including a favorite, “Don’t Be Cruel”. Or listen to hits such as “The Great Pretender” from another Top Ten group, The Platters. (My brothers and I studied classical music but pop music, especially rock-and-roll, was part of the ritual, of course.) Wolf-Man Jack, featured in American Graffiti, was in the first stage of his popularity as a disc jockey, peaking in the early sixties when my brothers were completing high school. His characteristically raspy voice beamed out nightly from XERB, a powerful station located just across the Mexican border.
The high-point of our adventure was when another car, filled with a group of boys hanging out the windows, would try to get our names and phone numbers. We would give out phony first names and false numbers, and rather than arrange to meet at Stan’s or Mar’s Drive-Ins we would virtuously return home excitedly giggling all the way. Rather silly teen girls barely understanding what this was really supposed to be about!
One early evening, I took my brother, Arnold, to our piano lessons at the home of Mrs. Babcock, our piano teacher. I was driving our family car, a blue Chrysler. I told my friend, Phyllis, to come along. I had my piano lesson first, then, exited the house while Arnold began his lesson and with Phyllis headed to Downtown Fresno which was not very far from Mrs. Babcock’s home located on Safford near Belmont. I figured we had just enough time to have a little fun dragging. I turned on to Fresno Street taking the right lane as I headed toward Fulton, driving past Craver Electric, my father’s old retail business from before the war that he had handed over to his older brother after World War II. As I approached the alley that paralleled “M” Street where my Dad’s electrical wholesale house was located, I noticed, too late, that an old junk truck with high boards elevating the sides, resembling the junk trunk used by the African-American comedian, Redd Fox in his black-and-white TV series Sanford and Son, was about to make a right turn into the alleyway from the left lane! The imminent collision could not be escaped and the junk truck struck the left fender of our family’s new Chrysler sedan. A policeman appeared. I do not know how he was contacted but we were across from the Courthouse Park where all the city and county services were located. After teasing me a bit about how far I had traveled after the moment of impact since I had moved forward almost a car length to park next to the curb, he handed out a ticket to the driver of the truck who with his wife were doubtless looking for recyclable junk, perhaps, discarded copper wire from the old Craver Electric motor rewind shop.
We immediately returned to Mrs. Babcock’s home and picked up my younger brother, Arnold, who was then just a month or so away from his twelfth birthday. After he got into the car, I told him what had happened. He reproached me, of course, and was certain that I would get into big trouble. After we delivered Phyllis home, and, drove the block and a half to our own home, he really let me know what he thought and predicted I would “FOR SURE” get in trouble. I entered the house and Arnold began to blurt out what I had done. My father and mother indicated that he should be quiet. Then, my father said, “Tell me what happened,” and I did, showing him the information I had been given by the police. He said: “Let’s go outside and you can show me the damage.” We turned on the porch and side yard lights, and he looked at the left rear fender which had an evident dent, but the metal was uncut and the tire intact. I must have looked completely distraught. Unlike my mother I could cry easily but I was too much in shock to cry. My father must have seen how I had taken the incident. To my surprise, he put his arm around me, patted my right shoulder, and, said: “Don’t worry, Earlene. This is why we have insurance.”
I was not punished in any way. I also did not try to borrow the car again to “drag the main.” Within weeks, I entered college. “Dragging the Main” was soon forgotten. I could not believe I had ever participated. Just as the narrator played by Richard Dreyfuss in “American Graffiti” I had put away such childish things.
*Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, the first notable appearance of Harrison Ford, and a young director and recent USC cinema school graduate, George Lucas. And, of course, Wolfman Jack.