Cruisin' the Circuit, 1957

Al's was packed on Friday and Saturday. Traffic was so bad that you could only get in by going in from the west and turning right. The police were there to direct traffic and keep people from trying to enter from the wrong way. You drove in and zig-zagged up and down the rows to see who was there. I think there were 5 or 6 rows. In the late '50's and early '60's would have bands set up in the northwest corner of the lot. You had to get there early if you wanted to be in the first row. After the band got there the first row was closed to traffic. During regular times the first row was mainly for single/married women, with lots of pick-up action!

Al's used to get backed up onto eastbound Washington and northbound Shadeland.  Laughners on Washington Street to the west was about the same for traffic. So was Jack and Jill's. All of them always had cops around, double on Friday/Saturday. Al's took the prize for volume, double or triple the rest of them on peak nights.

Once I started working at Ford it kind of screwed up my evenings, working from 3:00 pm to 12:00 am  I would get to Al’s about 12:15 am. Things would still be happening till about 3-4 am, then everybody would head for the all night restaurants to finish up.

I worked at Washington auto parts in the '50's. The place was owned by four Greek brothers. Alex ran the new parts, two worked outside in used parts and one worked in the rebuilt department. Pasco paints was across the street where we use to get our paints to do candy and pearl paint jobs.

I first went into Al's in 1957 and spent many hours there over the years. I actually shared a room in Community Hospital with Al in 1979. It seems they found him in the basement passed out. I remember he talked about the food service and the food they served.

We had a car club, the Kingsmen, that would meet there and hang out. Also the Cluster Busters would meet there. I worked at the Ford Plant 32 years, 5 minutes from Al's.  We would run over to pick up food, triple burgers and tenderloins with a pound of fries. Well, all we have left are the pics and memories of the best times of our lives. I knew a few of the carhops. Lucy, Judy and Patty. Patty Meriweather moved to Downey California to be a model. Last I heard she made it really big. An awesome girl.

Anybody ever tell about the Shadeland “dragway”? In '57, before Shadeland (Route 100) was completed it ended at English Ave. The bridges didn't go in for a couple of years later. If you went west on English and turned onto the ramp to northbound Shadeland, just as you came to Shadeland you would turn left and go south to the barricades. (This was when they were still building Shadeland.)  From the barricade to the point where the northbound ramp comes onto Shadeland was a 1/4 mile strip we used as a dragway.

We had a guy in the club that talked about his rail job (dragster) whenever somebody was going for a run on Shadeland. Dean Jarvis had a 283 D/G dragster that he would drive over from his house on Shortridge. Leaving Al's we would head south on Shortridge to English and turn on the northbound ramp to run our races on Shadeland. We had to watch all the time for the cops.  We ran with our lights off so they couldn't see us coming.

When there was an overflow into Al's we would meet over at Firestone in the Eastgate shopping center across the street. We would start out at Al's then go west on Washington to Laughners next to the Buick dealer. Then we’d head to Jack and Jill's on Shadeland, then to the King's Cup in Lawrence. From there we headed west on 38th street to the TeePee and Merill's High Decker. Sometimes we went up to the North Star on North Meridian. Then out to the Pole in Speedway, the Southside TeePee, and the Southern Pole.

In the '70's I ran a Shelby GT-500, mainly on Friday an Saturday nights for some cash. We would pick up races from Al's, Jack/Jill's and the Dairy Queen on 10th street across from the old Warren Central (became Woodview Junior High in the 60s and later a police training school). I was in the last class from Warren before it moved to 16th Street.

We used to hang out at the Standard gas station at Franklin and Washington or Dinger's Sunoco. At that time (50s-60s) some of the older guys had some really built cars. They would help us build and tune what we had.

I lived on the east side from '57 to '91 when we moved to Florida. Most of the time I lived in Cumberland. We had a train shop in Cumberland called Varry Trains. Sold it just before we left in '91 to a customer, Wayne Thompson. He moved the shop to Washington and Shadeland and changed the name to Train Central. It’s still going. I was one of the founders of the Cumberland Chamber of Commerce. I served as president three terms. We used to put on the October Feast in Cumberland, which had a circus with rides and a car show.  

Jack Varry (John)
Warren Central, Class of 1960