Elvis and the freeway...

So...I was driving down the freeway this morning and had a huge dose of nostalgia watching two cars filled with teens...

We (the girls) had just got back from a rousing night of cruising Broadway in the city downtown. You had to be sneaky because if you cruised up the strip more than 3 times then the police would ticket you so it was a game to take as long as you could and then park and walk and you could jump in cars with boys as they were driving by if you wanted...(I know...insanity)

Well, this evening in particular this group of boys were "following us..." I admit that there was some flirting happening on both ends, but not only did they follow us as we cruised, but they followed us out of Portland and onto the freeway where we rolled down our windows and passed notes back and forth to each other as we sped down the freeway at 55 MPH...(wouldn't you just KILL your daughter if you knew she did stuff like this?)

And of course we then decided to pull over at a gas station and hang out for awhile...and that was an invitation to a party they knew about which led to more parties and more hanging out and well...the friendships of a lifetime.

Now these guy friends were an actual dance troup...well, they called themselves a gang or a posse...not the literal meaning of gang as you think of it today, but gang as in homeboys hanging out...they called themselved Flips-n-Effect...and they danced a mixture of techno, 80's and breakdance moves.

Us girls always pictured ourselves as the backup dancer/singers. Many a night I'd be in my bedroom singing ooohs and aaaahs to some late 80's/early 90's hip hop song while shaking my bootie around...(I can only imagine what my mother thought. )

And I'm telling you all this because today is the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's "mysterious... maybe it didn't really happen" death. Elvis is best known (at least in my opinion) for his dance moves...the man could really shake his bootie. And well...if I think of bootie shaking in my life it all leads back to that one fateful night on the freeway...