Custer's Last Stand

A neon drive-in casts long shadows across a vast parking lot as the sun drops behind a distant hill.  A large neon sign buzzes in the foreground. . . Mel’s Drive-In, while in the background, “Rock Around The Clock” blares from the radio of a beautiful decked and channeled, white with red trim, tuck-and rolled ‘58 Chevy Impala that glides into the drive-in.

The opening scene in American Graffiti from the original script.

We lived American Graffiti in Marion, Indiana -- my home town.  Custer’s Last Stand was the Mel’s Drive-In of “Marion Graffiti”.  I imagine every teenager of the fifties and early sixties had a Mel’s Drive-In or a Custer’s Last Stand in their town that evokes the same wonderful memories of those by-gone innocent days of a high school summer.  Custer’s Last Stand was a classic 1950’s drive-in restaurant on the by-pass.  It was Bob Custer’s place.  It was our place.  It was the gathering place on those warm Indiana nights

A driver’s license and a car were the only passports needed to participate in the rituals of youth at Custer’s Last Stand.  Transportation came in a variety of shapes, sizes and ownership.  It might be a friend’s car, your family car, or if you were lucky, your own car.  I was one of the lucky ones. 

My car looked like it might belong to a grandma -- actually it was a car formerly owned by a grandma -- mine.  It was a 1949 four-door Ford sedan, battleship gray in color, with a straight stick.   The closest thing to customizing it was a quick-turn knob I attached to the steering wheel.  My car was hardly a symbol of cool, but it was all mine.

Some kids borrowed their family’s car to cruise Custer’s.  Borrowing the family car was the low end of cool, but it did represent a degree of independence and freedom.  Girls were often the prime borrowers of their families’ cars, since the boys often provided their transportation.  Girls didn’t have to be cool.  They were the object of cool. 

Some cars circled round and round -- some parked.  Circling Custer’s Last Stand was a little like the Indians circling General Custer and his troops at Little Bighorn.  Cars were backed into parking places on the back row in order to have a prime view of the parade of teenage freedom.  The stars of the parade were the half-finished customized ‘49 Mercs with gray primer, lowered rear-ends, chopped tops, de-chromed and leaded in, dual exhausts, smooth custom mufflers rumbling, radios blaring out the sounds of the fifties and drivers’ left arms cocked in open windows.  Customized cars were cool.  Cruisin’ Custer’s was cool.

If we had any money, we’d punch the call button on the speaker and wait to hear the familiar, “May I take your order please?”  “I’ll have an order of fries, double ketchup and a Coke”.  A car-hop, an auto waitress, would bring the order to the car and carefully (most of the time) attach the tray to the door.  It was the haute cuisine of the times.  Fries and a Coke were cool.

Custer’s Last Stand was more than fries and a Coke.  Custer’s was a place to see and be seen.  If you weren’t seen, you were missed.  It was a place for cruisin’ and buzzin’ and parkin’, squealin’ tires a little, dates and sittin’ close, hangin’ with the guys and checkin’ out the chicks.  It was a gathering place, and a place for making plans.  It was a place to be together and ask the “whys” of the deaths of our friends, Larry and Jim.  They peeled out of Custer’s one warm summer night and got themselves killed.  Our plans didn’t include tragedies, but for the first time we caught a glimpse of our mortality, but it didn’t last long.  Custer’s was the center of our universe, and we were immortal.  Custer’s was the coolest.

We leaned on the fenders wearing the styles of the times, ducktails, pegged pants, senior cords, saddle shoes, white bucks and penny loafers; smokin’ cigarettes, eatin’ fries, drinkin’ Cokes and talkin’ ‘bout “stuff”.  It was a James Dean thing.  He was our icon of cool, wearing his red jacket with the collar turned up and his teenage frustrations out front.  He was our Rebel without a Cause.  James Dean had been born in Marion, just like us, and we felt he was our kindred spirit, expressing our inner most thoughts and feelings as the teenagers of the times.  James Dean was cool.

James Dean was killed in a high-speed car crash, September 30, 1955.  It was the day our music died.  I was just starting college and sitting in my dorm room when I learned the tragic news.  I felt the deep shock you feel when a famous person you like and can relate to meets a too soon death.  His death served as a symbol of a coming of age, the carefree days of Custer’s were gone forever, and the rest of my life was beginning.  It was my personal Custer’s Last Stand.

Custer’s Last Stand was eventually torn down and replaced by a McDonald’s.

Have a nice day!

Sammy Carl
MHS Class of '55