Cruising:

I think we called it riding around.

If we stayed in town we usually just rode up Main Street to the Library where we would circle the Memorial and then loop back through town and on up to the Red Swan Inn. Here we either circled back again or proceeded up Galloway Road to the Custard Stand. Sometimes out of town girls showed up there, either Goshen girls or Florida girls.

If the Custard Stand was empty and we were in the mood we might continue south on 17A over Mt. Peter to Greenwood Lake. Once in Greenwood Lake our eyes were peeled for those purple Monroe Woodbury jackets that the high school girls wore. We generally proceeded slowly down The Lake’s main street, past the golf driving range, past the Arcade, Dunney’s hamburger stand, and Hanley’s newspaper store then hung a right at the only light in town and then rode up past the movie theatre to the Long Pond Inn where we turned around in the parking lot. To the extent that you could call kids from other towns or high schools friends, we had friends in Greenwood Lake. I remember the names Bob Petrillo, Bob Garneau, Tom Trumper, and Paul Chila. If there was nothing to detain us in “The Lake” we would either head back home or it was on to Monroe to look for more purple jackets.