In the mid-60s, MacDonald's and Burger King weren't all that big on the south side of Chicago where I lived and Wendy's, Arbys, etc hadn't even been heard of yet.  However, almost every neighborhood had a local A&W or Dog 'n Suds drive-in (sometimes both) and, where I lived, the "big thing" was the Dog 'n Suds.  If you're too young to remember the drive-in restaurants of the 60's, watch the movie "Hollywood Knights" and you'll get the idea.  The movie is overdone but it does give a  snapshot of the drive-in scene of the time.

     As I said above, the local Dog 'n Suds was THE place to hang out in the area where I lived on the south side of Chicago.  Everyone went there to:

Meet girls..........

Show off our cars..........

Meet girls..........

Tell each other lies about our cars or the girls we'd met..........

Meet girls, etc..........

Did I mention that we also went there to meet girls?  

     There were two "Suds" within a couple miles of each other; one in Midlothian where I lived and another in the neighboring town of Oak Forest.  There was another in Tinley Park but that was another 5-6 miles or so west.  The owner of the Midlothian Dog 'n suds discouraged kids from hanging around in the lot all that much so everyone who was "cool" went to either the Oak Forest or Tinley Park Dog 'n Suds.  Many rotated between one and the other during the course of a weekend night.  I didn't know many Tinley Park kids and since the car-hop I was interested in worked at the Oak Forest Dog 'n Suds, that's where I hung out. 

     Summer evenings were always good at the Suds but those beautiful early fall Indian Summer afternoons and evenings just seemed that much more special.  It was like stealing a couple more nice days from Mother Nature before the long, cold, dreary Chicago winter arrived and everyone went into hibernation. 

To the left and right are two pictures of a couple Dog n' Suds drive-ins from "back in the day,"  The Midlothian, Oak forest, and Tinley Park Suds all had the extended parking lot awning like the one at the right.   

     And how about those aluminum trays the car hops used to carry the food to the cars?  Later generations have missed the "pleasure" of those trays, of course, always loaded with frosty mugs of root beer, fries, hot dogs, hamburgers, ice cream floats, etc (sadly, I can't eat like that anymore). 

     You had to raise your window up a couple inches so the hooks on the bottom edge of the tray would catch the top edge of the window.  If you had a momentary laps of attention and lowered the window with a tray attached, it and its contents would crash to the ground with an unmistakable sound (more about this on a subsequent page).        

     That unforgivable breach of drive-in etiquette was always followed by uproarious laughter, cheers, hoots, whistles, and honking horns from the other kids in the lot and surrounding cars.  As you tried to make yourself as small as possible in the drivers seat, the annoyed car hop would come out to pick up the mess.  It would also attract the unwanted attention and ire of the drive-in owner, especially if a mug got broken.  When you were guilty of this egregious violation of drive-in etiquette, "protocol" dictated a considerably larger tip for the carhop.