Scooping the Loop  − 1 January, 1995

Scooping the Loop was a pastime for many young residents of Des Moines. Bored teens going all the way back to the 1950s would take their cars and their friends, go downtown, and drive down Walnut Street, turn at the state capitol, turn again at Locust Street, and come down the other way, repeating this process several times. The objective was to flirt with girls or guys, and to waste time hanging out with your friends late at night.

Though I was far too geeky to do any flirting, I did get in with a group of C- and D-list Urbandale High students who participated in this tradition. I loved it. The kids I was hanging around with weren't really all that cool; in fact, I ditched a true friend of mine just before I fell in with them. But they accepted me, and I joined in with them. They were, you know, "high school friends." The ones you're ashamed of when they show up when you're with your college friends later on.

I participated in Scooping the Loop through the end of 1994 and into 1995, hanging out with this clique of mostly girls. Since none of them really wanted to drive, the task fell to me, which was just fine, as I had a serious love for driving which continues today. One of these girls just got a weird orange-ish '82 Cadillac Cimmaron (basically a badged-up Chevy Cavalier), and I ended up driving that damn car every weekend downtown.

These girls that I was hanging out with were fun and funny, but they led me into some strange times. They started doing all sorts of weird shit, much of which I wasn't going to follow. Through the summer of 1995, I continued to hang out with them, but my time scooping the loop with them came to a quick conclusion that fall. One of the girls started dating this white-trashy guy from East Des Moines over the summer, a kid that had clearly been on the wrong side of several laws at different times. I had spent a couple moments with him where I feared for my safety, in fact, not because he was threatening me, but because I was in the car while he did stupid things. This was when I started to question whether I really wanted to stay friends with all these people.

Meanwhile, I got my first car, the car I'd been dreaming of for two years, the car I had handpicked -- my 1984 Cadillac Eldorado. Now, regardless of what a POS this car eventually turned out to be, it was a gorgeous, magnificent specimen of American engineering and luxury when I bought it. Goddamn, I loved that car at first. It was cream, had lots of lovely Cadillac crests and badges, leather bench seats and just felt special.

I brought that car to scoop the loop just once, in, like, September of 1995. And who did I have the misfortune of riding with but my female friend's crazy white trash boyfriend. I literally recoiled at the idea of him dirtying my nice cream-colored upholstry, but I was polite and let him go the loop with me a couple times.

I was literally on my last loop with him before I was going to drop him off, when, driving at 25 MPH down Locust Street, he saw one of his buddies in another car. I saw him point and shout at his friend, then I looked in my rearview mirror where I suddenly saw him rolling outside, behind my car. He'd bailed! While still moving, I had to unbuckle my seat belt, lurch across the passenger seat, and grab the door handle to my five-foot long door, and pull it shut.

Needless to say, I never returned to the loop.