| 1962 Last Good Year Cruisin Central   Church Keys & Onion Peelers  Over 900,000 Sold For Sale A Date with CaslonNew Year's Eve Wildcat Has a Party  Song List Lipstick Bucket Bags Online Store  | Slang compiled by Charlotte WebbPhoenix, Arizona, 1962 . . .© 2003,  from the novel,  Cruisin Central.   All rights reserved.
 
 
 
  angel hair  n. long hairlike strands of spun fiberglass in bright colors.  Used for decoration in the rear window and on the showroom floor at car shows
 
backcomb  v.  generic term for combing a strand of hair toward the scalp, instead of away from it, in order to add volume to a hair style.  There are several methods of backcombing, all referred to as ratting by the uninitiated. See also french-lace, rat.
 
be a comedian  phrase "What you said is not funny."
 
bent   adj. shortened form of bent outa shape
 
bent outa shape  adj. phrase   upset
 
Big Boy®  n. a double-decker hamburger with lots of lettuce and cheese, and Thousand Island dressing instead of ketchup or mustard, sold only at Bob's Big Boy Restaurants
 
bitchen  adj.  boss, tuff, great
 
blast   n.   lotsa fun
 
blow   v.   1.  to leave.  Like, Let's blow this town.   2.  to spend.  Like, Caslon blows all his money on car parts.   3.  to ruin
 
boilermaker   n. whiskey with a beer chaser
 
boonies   n. way out in the desert, where cops are less likely to cruise
 
bore  n.  the diameter of the cylinders in a car engine
 
boss  adj.  replacing tuff and bitchen on the Coast
 
brain bucket   n. safety helmet
 
bubble   n. a bouffant hairstyle for women, set on large rollers, and then french-laced to add volume.  Jackie Kennedy wears her hair in a bubble.
 
bug   v.  to bother
 
candy apple red   n. carmine red car paint with many layers of clearcoat metallic painted over it.  It's the same color as the cinnamon candy coating on Hallowe'en apples.  Cheap version is carmine paint with metallic flakes in it.
 
car club   n. a club to which boys belong.  Identified by matching jackets, license plate holders, a plaque in the rear window.  The members get together and swap car parts.
 
car name   n.  a unique name that is custom-painted on the rear fenders of a car, near the tail-light.  Examples: Midnite Special, Yellow Fever, Vat 69, Baby Talk
 
cheaters   n. tires made from the same rubber as slicks, but with very shallow tread, in order to be street legal
 
cherry phosphate   n. 7-Up® or plain carbonated water with cherry syrup added
 
chopped  adj.  a car that has its roof lowered
 
church key   n.  a puncture-type portable can opener, for opening beer cans in the boonies
 
cleancut  adj. boys that your mother would approve of.   They usually have crewcuts and wear Ivy League clothes.  The opposite of hoods
 
Continental kit   n. a metal tire cover that is mounted on the back of the car
 
crewcut   n. boys' short haircut, groomed with pomade to stand straight up from the scalp
 
crinoline   n. a slip made of two or more layers of many yards of starched organdy or nylon net gathered at the waist, worn under a very full skirt
 
cruisin Central  phrase   driving up and down Central Avenue in Phoenix after sundown
 
d.a.   n.  a haircut that looks like a duck's tail,  mostly worn by hoods.  The hair is combed straight back on both sides of the head, meeting in a ridge or point at the nape, so that the back of the head looks like the tail of a swimming duck.
 
Dagmars  n.  the two bullet-like protrusions on the front bumper of a 1956 Cadillac, named after a Hollywood starlet whose main "talent" was her lovely figure
 
dip  n. a person who's really out to lunch
 
double  v. to double-date, to take another couple along when you go out on a date
 
drive-in restaurant  n. like Bob's and McDonald's, where you stay in your car and the car hop comes out and takes your order and brings your food on a tray, and you eat in your car
 
drive-in theater  n. like Cinema Park, where you stay in your car and watch the movie.  There are loudspeakers on poles, and you park next to a pole and hook the loudspeaker on your open car window so you can hear the movie dialogue.
 
EP   n. a 7-inch, 45 rpm record with four songs on it, two on each side, literally, Extended Play. Usually has a large hole in the center.  If it has a small hole, the EP is meant to be played at  331/3 rpm, and may have six songs instead of four.
 
federal case  n. a big deal, like "My Mom made a federal case out of it, when I came in at 2 AM."
 
fire drill  n. a cruising game, played by three or more dips, with a four-door car.  At a stoplight, they all jump out, and run around the car.  When the light turns green, the person who's closest to the driver's seat gets to be the driver, and everyone jumps back in the car and they peel out.
 
flats  n. women's pump-style dress shoes with a ½-inch heel, what all the girls wear to school.  All really boss flats have pointed toes.
 
flip [for]  v. to fall in love with
 
french-lace  v. a method of backcombing girls' hair, in which only the roots are backcombed, leaving most of the strand of hair to smoothly cover the ratting at the scalp
 
frenched headlights  n. headlights with sheet metal rim extending beyond the convex surface.  The frenching resembles eyelids on the headlights.  Frenched headlights were standard on 1956 Fords.Slang, Page 2
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