Recently a young girl wrote and asked if I had been a carhop when I was younger.  She was doing a project for her "history" class at school and she wanted to write about the "olden" days of the carhop. She was allowed to use the internet as a resource and asked if I would tell her about my carhop days. The "olden" days??? It doesn't seem THAT long ago to me, but this is part of what I wrote for her.

It was in 1954 when I was 11 years old that I decided I wanted to be a carhop. My sister before me had been a carhop, and this seemed like the most natural job to have in those days. In South Dakota at that time, you had to be 12 years old before you could get a job, but I was ready to work even though South Dakota wasn't ready for me to work. The owner of the two carhop drive-ins in town also owned a downtown cafe, so one I walked downtown to the cafe and asked the owner, Wayne Kiner, for a job as a carhop.

He asked me how old I was, and when I told him I was 11 years old, he told me to come back in a year.  I didn't accept that and went back to the cafe the next day, but he told me the same thing again - to wait a year.

I continued this daily trip downtown until finally one day when I told him I wanted a job, he said, (I think out of sheer frustration), "Okay!  You can have the job, but I need your parent's permission."  (The labor laws weren't as strict back then and it was just a small hometown in South Dakota.)  I was only allowed to work during the day that first summer, and lived close enough to walk to and from work each day.

1954 was also the year Elvis Presley made his first public appearance in Memphis, so this was the beginning of a whole new era of music. And, as a very young carhop, I was ready to begin my working career amidst the new rock and roll songs.

The American Heritage Dictionary describes a carhop as "One who waits on customers at a drive-in restaurant" I can't say the place where I worked could be considered a restaurant. It was just a small building on the north edge of town on the west side of Main Street. There was a large cornfield just north of the building, and there were no buildings or businesses across the street, but the Roller Dome (skating rink) was just a little further south on east Main.

The small building, which was named Palace City Drive-In, had no place to go inside to sit down and get something to eat. The service and eating all had to be done outside in your car with a tray attached to the window on the driver's side. If it was an especially large order, there might be another tray attached to the passenger side of the car too. At times these trays could be very heavy.

A hamburger, french fries (or shoestrings as they were called back then) with a coke or a malt was the most popular order. Everything was served in paper - the hamburger wrapped in paper, the shoestrings in a paper basket and the coke or malt in a paper cup. Paper napkins were also provided.

The carhops sat on a bench outside a screened porch while they waited for customers to drive in. There was a radio inside the screened porch tuned into the station that played all the latest hit songs. We did not wear special uniforms, and we were not on roller skates. The parking lot was gravel, so it would have been very difficult on roller skates. We usually wore shorts in the summer and slacks when the weather got a little cooler at night towards the end of summer. We each wore a pouch with pockets around our waist to hold the money we received and to make change when needed.

As a car pulled in, we took turns taking orders. We were assigned a number and given small placards with numbers on them to correspond with the number we were assigned. As we approached the car, we placed one of the placards under the windshield wiper on the card to identify it as our customer. We also offered menus such as the one pictured below if they wanted one.

We took the order by writing it down on an order pad, and then turned the order in to the cooks inside the small building by yelling "Order in!" When the order came up, they rang a bell and called out our number. We then placed the order on a tray and carried it out to the car. The tray was fastened to the car window with a leg that would slide up against the side of the car to hold the tray in place.

We collected the money and kept it in our pouch. At the end of the day or night, our money was turned in to whoever was counting the money (usually the owner). After the money had been matched up with our orders, anything left over was our tip money. If we were having a busy night and had accumulated a lot of money before the evening was over, we could turn it in with a voucher that recorded what we had turned it.

When the customer was ready to leave, they would flash their lights as a signal to pick up the tray. On a real busy night, they would sometimes honk their horn if the tray wasn't picked up fast enough. Tips were usually left on the tray as they left.

I made 25 cents an hour plus all the tips I received. The tips were better at night, and since we were located about a mile from the drive-in theater, the biggest tips were after the drive-in theater closed and people were on their way home. This was also the busiest time with cars all over the lot. We weren't assigned specific areas, so our customers could be all over the place. At times this could be very hectic remembering which order belonged to which car.

When I eventually stared working nights, Wayne owner would drive each of us home after we had closed up for the night.  He would always wait outside in the car until we entered the house.  One night I had made arrangements for a boyfriend to pick me up after I had been dropped off.  I waited just inside the door until Wayne drove off, and then went back outside to be picked up by the boyfriend.  Just as I was getting ready to get into his car, Wayne drove up behind us and  fiercely strongly motioned for me to get back in the house, which I did.  Apparently Wayne had seen the boyfriend drive up behind, so he drove around the block and made sure I was back in the house before he left.

After that, whenever he dropped me off I had to go inside the house and upstairs to my bedroom which faced the front of the house.  I had to turn the light on in my bedroom before he would drive away.  

I was a carhop the summers of 1954 and 1955, but during the school year in 1956 I worked as a waitress in the cafe downtown on south Main Street - Kiner's Cafe. The next year in 1957 I worked the year around as a waitress at the cafe making 50 cents an hour plus tips, but filled in whenever I could as a carhop because I enjoyed that the most.

Today we tend to think of carhops and drive-ins as strictly a 50's teenager thing, but it wasn't. While the carhops were young teenagers, and a lot of the customers were teenagers, we also had many families with young children as our customers. My favorite customer was an older man who drove in by himself (in a blue car) almost every night and ordered the same thing - a cheeseburger, shoestrings and a cup of coffee.  He was very friendly and always left a nice tip.  I never did learn his name, but always remember him when I think of those carhop days.

I have a lot of fond memories about my carhop days.  It was the beginning of the rock and roll era, and I was fortunate enough to be right in the middle of it. For me, this was the "good 'ole days" and I always believed that rock and roll was here to stay!

"Rock 'n Roll is Here To Stay"

Rock 'n roll is here to stay
It will never die
It was meant to be that way
Though I don't know why

I don't care what people say
Rock 'n roll is here to stay
We don't care what people say
Rock 'n roll is here to stay

Rock 'n roll will always be
Our ticket to the end
It will go down in history
Just you wait, my friend

Rock and roll will always be
It'll go down in history
Rock 'n roll will always be
It'll go down in history

Everybody rock
Everybody rock
Everybody rock, everybody rock
Everybody rock

Everybody rock 'n roll
Everybody rock 'n roll, everybody rock 'n roll
Everybody rock 'n roll, everybody rock 'n roll

Rock 'n roll is here to stay
It will never die
It was meant to be that way
Though I don't know why

I don't care what people say
Rock 'n roll is here to stay

Rock 'n roll will always be
Our ticket to the end
It will go down in history
Just you watch, my friend

Rock 'n roll will always be
It'll go down in history
If you don't like rock 'n roll
Think what you've been missing

But if you like to bop and stroll
Come on down and listen
Let's all start to have a ball
Everybody rock 'n roll

Oh baby rock
Oh baby rock
Oh baby rock

"Nostalgia Index"

 

"Puppet On A String"		"Rock 'n Roll Waltz"

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~ StinaLisa ~

 

"Rock 'n Roll is Here to Stay"
Recorded by Danny & The Juniors in 1958

 

Danny & the Juniors originated in Philadelphia in 1957 as "The Juvenairs".  A local disc jockey named Larry Brown changed the groups name to Danny & the Juniors.  The quartet consisted of Danny Rapp, Dave White, Frank Maffei and Joe Terranova

Dave White write a song for them named "Do The Bop" and it caught Dick Clark's attention, who suggested they rename it "At The Hop".  After the song  played on American Bandstand, it went to the top of the charts and stayed there for 7 weeks.  Their next song was "Rock 'n Roll Is Here To Stay" and it made it to the top 20s.  In 1960 they recorded "Twisting USA" and this became their last hit record. They were inducted into The Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003.

The music playing is a condensed version of "Rock 'n Roll Is Here To Stay", and is for entertainment, educational and evaluation purposes only. Titles have full copyright by their respective artists and record companies. Please show your support for the artists who gave us this great music by purchasing their CDs.

If you are interested in purchasing a full version of "Rock 'n Roll Is Here To Stay" by Danny & The Juniors, I have provided a link below to Amazon.com.  You can do a search for the song at Amazon's MP3 download section.  The song sells for 89 cents.

Thank you

 

April 2008