A few weeks ago, Pat had a gift certificate someone had given her for Christmas she needed to redeem at Kirkland's in Towne Square Mall in Owensboro. Since we have two granddaughters living over there, we always take advantage of an opportunity to go to Owensboro and stop by and see them. This is pretty much a weekly thing with us. This particular evening, we stopped by the mall on Saturday night, on our way back to Central City. I usually sit in the car and wait for her but I knew she'd probably be in there a while so I decided to accompany her. As we entered, I noticed that in the main intersection in the mall, a group of about 75 to 100 teenagers were gathered around the benches and chairs located there. They weren't really bothering anyone, just sort of "hanging out." Some of them were drinking cokes or eating ice cream cones. A few even had some shopping bags where they had been in one of the stores. I remarked to Pat "I wonder what they're all doing here," and she told me that this was about the only place they could sort of "hang out" without having to eat an expensive meal or go to an unaffordable movie. I thought to myself "How Sad," and memories of the old Dairy Maid came to mind.
As we left the mall and headed for home, the radio in our car was on an "oldies" station and Mike Harvey's "Super Gold" was on the air. It's the closest thing today to WLS and Dick Biondi or Art Roberts. It made my mind drift back to the "good old days" and the Dairy Maid. It made me think of how lucky we were as teens to have such a place. It wasn't just a popular hangout for kids from Central City. It was also the social center for kids from Greenville, Drakesboro, Beechmont, Powderly, Graham and all points in between. It was never unusual to find kids from Owensboro or Madisonville driving over and hanging out there. A friend of mine (who worked in Chicago with me) once told me that he was out there one night when a black Cadillac pulled in and ordered burgers. There were three very attractive black girls in the car. He could tell they were rich (or at least well off) and they were very friendly. They were passing through Central City and stopped to get something to eat.
He told me that he was sure they were Diana Ross and the Supremes (although they were only called the Supremes then) even though they never told him that. I believe him.
If you've never had the pleasure of seeing the movie "American Graffiti," then go and rent it immediately. It's one of the best movies I've ever seen (I've seen it several times) and it's the closest thing I know of to describing a typical night in Central City in the early 60's. Sure, it was about teens in a larger town but it's all the same. Cruising, hanging out at the Dairy Maid....a carefree life!
Although most all communities, no matter how large or small, had centralized hangouts, none was quite like the Dairy Maid. Bremen had the Golden Eagle Cafe, Graham the "Christmas Tree" (anybody remember that?), Greenville had both the Country Kitchen and the Chat & Chew, Drakesboro had the Dairy Whip (I believe that was the name of it) and Owensboro had the DDI (acronym for Dairy Drive-In) but the "Maid" had a personality of her own.
I believe Fred Massey actually built the Dairy Maid but he's not the one I remember running it. All through my high school years, I dated Linda Noffsinger and her parents happened to own the Dairy Maid. She was a "car hop" there when we met. I didn't even have a driver's license yet but I still managed to hang out there in somebody else's car. Early on, there was a "trampoline" center next door but it soon "played out" and that area became a parking lot. It was great...just more room for more cars. On the corner was a hill covered mostly with vines and sagebrush. We didn't realize it at the time but this was a cemetery. I found out about it because Transit Oil Co. purchased the corner for a gasoline station and the graves were relocated. I can remember hanging out on the lot and watching the streams of "cool cars" circle the maid (many of them over and over). I'm talkin' 57 Chevys, 58 Chevys, Old Rat Rods, Sports Cars, Corvettes, T-Birds and stuff like that. Wayne Mayhugh had a '57 Chevy 2 door post that he had "Jacked up" the front end on and removed the front bumper. It was the baddest looking car I ever saw up to that time and I "drooled" every time I saw it. His younger brother Jerry (later the Sheriff) had a '58 that was set up the same way.
For anyone between 13 and 30, the Dairy Maid was the place to be. It was Western Kentucky's clearing house of fun. Some of the funniest sights I remember involved the cars and people that continously "circled" the Maid. Dedo Graves driving his '56 Chevy Wagon that had the entire floorboard rusted out where he could actually stand up and walk while guiding the car with the steering wheel. Or Bobby Cobb who had an old '53 Chevy sedan that he wanted to look "hot." He jacked it up as far as he could and installed 2 x 4's between the frame and the springs on the old car until it had literally "no give." The front half of the Dairy Maid parking lot was paved and the back half was gravel. Bobby was "cruisin' around the Maid when his left front tire dropped into a pothole at the edge of the pavement, thereby elevating the right rear wheel off the ground. It was spinning harmlessly in the air. Here it was on a hot, dry August night and he was "hung up" right there. It took several of us to push him out of that pothole.
The last owner of the Dairy Maid was Doris Joe Robinson. In the back of the main building was a metal carport that had a "wavy" corrugated roof, suspended on steel poles. "Joe" (his short name) always parked his car under that carport. I remember one evening I was riding around with Ron McRoy in his black Corvair coupe. Somewhere I had acquired a package of firecrackers, you know, the ones that are about four feet long and have at least 300 firecrackers. Usually when you light them a few will go off and the rest don't. The first six or eight blow the others apart and away from any source of fire to light them. Well, this particular night, Joe had purchased a brand new Buick Hardtop. He parked it in his regular place under the carport. As Ron and I headed to the "Maid," I told him to circle and I was going to light the firecrackers I had and throw them over his car onto the roof of the carport. There were several cars circling the Dairy Maid and traffic was pretty much halted. When we got around back, I lit the firecrackers and tossed them in a "hooking" fashion up towards the roof of that carport. I missed my mark by about one-eighth of an inch. The entire package landed under the carport directly on the trunk of Joe's new Buick. The first one went off, then the second and the third and so on. In fact, the whole darned package went off and NONE OF THEM blew off of his car. They were popping and flaming and dancing all over the trunk. We were stuck in traffic and I knew Joe would be out in a few seconds and wouldn't be happy. Quickly, I told Ron to "hang a right" and get outa Dodge! He did and we nearly flipped his Corvair but we got away. If nobody "ratted" I knew we would get away with it. Thirty years later Doris Joe told me he knew who had thrown the firecrackers onto his car. Luckily it did no harm (I don't know how), and he laughed about it. After he died, his son told me it was one of his Dad's favorite stories.
What made the Dairy Maid such a neat hangout was because of it's unusual layout. When you went to Jerry's (in Owensboro) or A & W (in Bowling Green), they brought your meal to your car. You ate it and had to leave. At the Dairy Maid, there were two sections. The first was the area around the building where the "car hops" brought your food to you. At that point, you either ate it and then moved to the side lot or you moved to the side lot and ate it. This allowed for everyone to get fast service and no one "tied up" one of the "eating" spots for hours. This kept both the restaurant patrons and the restaurant owners happy, It was perfectly OK on the side lot to get out of your car and sit on the hood or lean on the car, whatever suited your fancy. There was always a continous parade of cars circling the building and there were always fresh "black strips' from spinning tires on the pavement in front.
In the mid-sixties, Muscle Cars were popular. You could purchase a car with nearly 500 horsepower directly off of the showroom floors. These included Chevrolet Malibus and Impalas, Ford Fairlane GT's and Mercury Comet Cyclones, Pontiac GTO's, Plymouth Roadrunners and Dodge Super Bees, Cudas and Challengers, Mustangs and Camaros. It was about this time that the 8-Track Tape player was invented. They came along too late to be included in the dashboard of these cars so you purchased one at Sears (they'd install it) and it hung under the center of the dash. All of the latest hits from the Four Seasons, The Supremes, Bobby Goldsboro, Johnny Horton and later the Beatles and Dave Clark Five and Rolling Stones could be heard in stereo. It was also about this time when a tape was sold called "The Big Sounds of the Big Drags!" This was pretty much self-explanatory. It was a collection of drag racing sounds from the likes of Don "Big Daddy" Garlits or Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins.
Glenn Adking had an Oldsmobile 4-4-2, a muscle car (the 4-4-2 stood for Four Barrel, Four Speed, Dual Exhausts). He had an eight track tape player and somebody managed to round up a couple of outdoor PA speakers (the ones like you see at a baseball game) with "alligator clips" on the end of the wires. They were perfect to place in the trunk, clip them to the standard rear speakers and "Voila," you've got a sound that could be heard practically at Drakesboro. Match that up the "The Big Sounds of the Big Drags" and you've got a Drag Race directly in front of the Dairy Maid.
The Police liked to park in front of Connie Lile's DX Service Station at night. From that vantage point they could see pretty much the whole Dairy Maid. They could see both directions of U. S. 431 and both directions of U. S. 62. I guess all of the crime in town happened out there.
Anyhow, we positioned Glenn's 4-4-2 in the middle of the Dairy Maid "side lot," and put the drag racing tape in the slot. We turned up the volume as loud as it would go and it sounded just like a "knock down, drag out, winner-take-all" drag race was happening right there in front of the Maid. Only thing was you could hear it but you couldn't see it. It drove the cops "batty." One of them would get out of each side of the car and one would look up and down 62 while the other looked both ways on 431. This went on for several minutes before they finally figured it out.
They wanted to write a ticket for excessive noise but whenever they came around the Maid, we simply shut the trunk. They'd no more than pull out and we'd open it again, complete with the sounds of the dragsters. They finally just shook their heads and went out the the Kentucky Grill for coffee.
The Dairy Maid was the "hub" of the nightly "cruising route." The "cruising route" began and ended there. When departing the Maid, you turned right and drove down to the stoplight at the corner of 2nd & Broad. From there, you would turn left and go to the next stoplight (1st & Broad).
This took you past the State Theater, Winnie's Grill (later named the "Sugar Shack) and the Pool Hall. Turning right on First to the A & P Store, hang another right past Lester's and the City Building (also the youth center), another right and you were back on Second. Go back, circle the Dairy Maid again and this time, turn left when exiting and then left at the four-way stop. This put you on 62 heading east and you then drove past Henry-Cisney Chevrolet, Phil Byrd's automatic car wash, Doc Carr's service station (his 2nd), the famous "Y" cafe and on to the Kentucky Grill. The Kentucky Grill was the first hangout in Central City (actually the second....Miller's Drug Store was the first) but was later replaced by the Maid. Once you past the Grill, you always turned around in the wide driveway of Rose Hill Cemetery (you could "squeal" your tires here if the cops werenj't around) and back to the Dairy Maid....end of route. This scenario would be repeated several times a night by hundreds of cars.
Nowadays, all of the restaurants seem to be either "sit down" or "fast food." The Dairy Maid was torn down years ago and replaced with a modern new Wendy's. They have good food but it'll never be the same. I suppose the Sonic Drive-Ins come close but still, there's a difference.
I miss the Dairy Maids and the Tyson's Barbeques and the Kentucky Grilles and the Country Kitchens. I miss Downtowns. I miss Drive In Theaters and make-shift dragstrips (remember "Bell Bottoms"). I miss parking out at the old Morehead Cemetery and "harassing" the other parkers. I miss WLS and Dick Biondi. These things will always be a product of our youth.
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