Bertha Pleasants Daniel: “[As teenagers in the early ’30s,] we’d drive over to Raleigh and park on a street and watch the people window shopping. We went to the movies a lot. Every now and then they would have a band. We were in the big band era, and my husband loved pop music. He always made a point of us going when there was anything special at the theaters. Not a whole lot of parties. My husband loved to picnic. We never went anywhere that I didn’t have to fix a picnic lunch.

We weren’t allowed to play cards or dance, and we didn’t do it.”

Doris Denning: “There was a drive-in theater [in Cary] for many years.

It was on the corner of Chatham and Maynard, Where the trailer park is now. Down Chatham Street was a Mexican restaurant called Little Tampa. It was a place to go and listen to music and dance. That was about the only place around.”

Mary Crowder: “[In the mid-’40s,] we went to the drugstore [soda fountain] quite often. In the summer, we’d get ice cream. In high school, we double-dated and triple-dated on Saturday night and go to the movies in Raleigh. We used to go to the drive-in theater in Cary. And you didn’t leave at 10, your mom meant [be home by] 10. You didn’t go out to eat dinner. You were invited to someone’s home and ate, but you didn’t go out to a cafe and eat.”

John Yarborough: “What better date could you have than to go to the drive-in, double-date. Get you a popcorn and watch the movie. There would be a party at a community center. During the summer, going down to Moorehead City at their big pavilion, or going to a dance at Pullen Park. They used to have a little gazebo-type pavilion out there, and they had a juke box in the ’50s when rock and roll was coming into being. Dancing was something that was unusual rather than the usual thing.”

The Seegers — Marie: “We went to drive-in theaters. We would ride around to all of the hangouts. Roy’s in Raleigh was one of the big hangouts. Going to the ballgames. Things were very well attended at school functions and church functions. But the place that your parents [should] never hear about you going to was the Rock Station [in Cary.] They sold lots of beer, and that was supposed to be a really rough place, so you’d better never be caught going to the Rock Station, especially if you were a girl.”

Linda Evans: “We would go to the Ambassador Theater in downtown Raleigh, to the movies. It’s not there anymore. If there was a dance or a play at school, we’d be excited about going. Then there were social organizations, like the Blue Review. They’d have dances and little fund-raisers for the young kids. We would go to the park or to a ballgame. Some people would have house parties, everybody just get together and play cards, play music, or cut up and act crazy.”

John Yarborough: “At one time in Cary, I think everybody in the 12th grade got married. Either then or before. There were more teenagers that got married in Cary at a particular time while still in high school.”

Cary’s Heritage is taken from the book, Just a Horse-Stopping Place, an Oral History of Cary, North Carolina, which is on sale at the Page-Walker Hotel in downtown Cary. The book is a collection of oral history interviews conducted between local citizens and Friends of the Page-Walker Hotel. Proceeds from the sale of this book support the preservation of Cary’s history through the Cary Heritage Museum.