Popular Things Teenagers Did In The 80s In Lake Charles

Where are all of our 1980s teenagers? If you grew up in the 1980's then you know it was a time of parachute pants, swatch watches, big hair, and fun times in Lake Charles.

If you were lucky enough to be a teenager in the 1980s then you also know it was the era of great music from pop artists to hair bands. Hair band artists like Bon Jovi, Guns and Roses, Def Leopard, and Ratt rocked us while pop artists like Debbie Gibson, Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, and Two Live Crew kept us singing and dancing.

I myself grew up in the 1980s. I started my freshman year in 1986 at LaGrange High School in Lake Charles. Back then we would tight-roll our jeans, feather our hair, and sport our penny loafers with no socks.

As I started thinking about the 80s, I thought about the things Southwest Louisiana and Lake Charles teenagers did back then for fun.

I came up with a list of things that most teenagers did. Here we go.

• When you got your driver's license, you would either borrow your parent's car or if you were lucky enough to have your own ride, you would go riding up and down Ryan Street from downtown Lake Charles at the Civic Center to McDonald's in South Lake Charles. We would then pull into McDonald's ride around the drive-thru and hit Ryan Street again and head back toward the Civic Center. We would pile as many people into our truck or car as we could and jam our big ole speakers to music.

• Some would go to Garfield's teenage club which was located on Ryan Street in Lake Charles. It was like being an adult without the booze. You could go and dance and show off your terrible 80s dance moves.

Almost everyone who wanted to buy a cassette tape and then a CD when they first came out went to Harvest Records which was located on East Prien Lake Road next to Lake Charles Music. The coolest part is they would put a Harvest Records sticker on it with the date you bought it. You were proud to show your friends that you had something from the record store.

• During the week after school when you were bored, you would catch a ride to the Prien Lake Mall with your friends. You didn't go to shop, you went to walk around the mall and hook up with other friends.

• Before you or any of your friends had a car or a driver's license, you would head out to Skate City on Nelson Road in Lake Charles on Friday nights. Friday night was the night to go! If you went and someone had a red stamp on their hand, then they were only staying for one session while people with the blue stamp were cool enough to get to stay for both sessions.

• Another cool thing to do back then was to hang out at the seawall at the Lake Charles Civic Center. Why? One thing is what I talked about earlier, all your friends would be riding around on Ryan and pass through and you could hook up and hang out. Second, you would just pile up a bunch of cars and trucks and just hang out bumping your music.

If you didn't want to hang out with your friends and wanted to go out on a date with your high school sweetheart  (At The Time), the movies were the old reliable place to go. Back then we only had the Charles Cinema which was on Sale Road, Oak Park Cinema Six on Oak Park Boulevard, and the Cinema 3 theatre at the Prien Lake Mall where Dillards now sits.

So there you go, just some of the things the typical teenager in Lake Charles and Southwest Louisiana would do for fun.