Like many people my age, I look back at my "parking" days with a bit of a cringe and a warm feeling in my gut (it used to be lower, but, well you know). The art of "parking"—finding an isolated spot to park your ride and make out with your "date"—seemed so groovy at the time.
My favorite parking spot, growing up in Kingman, was on Crusher Hill, wayyyy out in the sticks, on Hall Street (today Stockton Hill Road). Yesterday, I was cleaning in the garage and found this: back in the eighties, I did this artwork as an homage to that era and to those hot summer nights:
A Green Light On Crusher Hill:
"If you're a loyal KOMA listener, kiss your sweetheart!"
There were other parking spots around Kingman: Black Bridge, White Tanks, Perfume Pass, White Cliffs and Court House Hill. For a brief time I frequented Court House Hill until some nightshift sheriff's deputies watched me go up there, from the court house, and waited fifteen minutes before pouncing with their lights flashing and sirens blaring. I seem to remember I was with the Mormon Bishop's daughter, but I can't completely confirm that (nor would she!)
Of course "parking" today sounds as hokey and corny as "sparking" did to us when we were young and horny.
Ain't it funny how the night moves?
"Out past the cornfields where the woods got heavy,
Out in the back of my '60 Chevy. . ."
—Bob Seger, "Night Moves"
Parking Postcard Art by Carol Bouman, 1975
Poco Loco Parking History
"You gringos sure know how to make sex embarrassing."
—Old Vaquero Saying
Trying to remember where Crusher Hill was?
ReplyDeleteBut I definitely remember Radar Hill.
Love this sketch, Bob. Or is it scratchboard?
Val Collins
Crusher Hill is about a half mile north of Kingman Regional Hospital, and two blocks west of Stockton Hill Road. I believe there is a house sitting on top of it today. I lived below Radar Hill in 1956, but you couldn't really park up there because of the troops stationed there at the time.
Delete