LIFE AFTER CRUISING Story Comments
Create a hardcopy of this page
Font Size:
Default font size
Larger font size Posted: Sunday, September 14, 1997 12:00 am Michael Futch Staff Writer Sunday, September 14, 1997 BENSON -- It's a Friday night, a football Friday night, and things are pretty quiet downtown on Main Street. The occasional vehicle motors through, past the rows of Bradford pear trees lining the streets of the downtown district. Awnings hang over the sidewalks that lead customers to such shops and businesses as the L. Don Johnson Co. hardware store, Benson Flower Shop and Inspirations Christian Books and Gifts. From a glance, this could be a sleepy town most anywhere. Up until a year ago, chances were good that the traffic would have been backed up along this nearly two-mile stretch at this time of day. Main Street was the main drag in Benson, what used to be called the cruising capital of North Carolina. About 2,000 people were known to drive through the town on prime cruising nights: Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That came to a halt on Sept. 10, 1996, when the Benson town board formally outlawed Main Street cruising. The demise of cruising followed two murders of young men visiting town on cruising nights last year. ``I think the town's a whole lot better off without it. It was just a nuisance,'' said Margaret Parrish, better known around the town as ``Maggie.'' She sat behind the counter inside Pat's Saddle Shop, one of the downtown shops, her big gold earrings bobbing as she spoke. ``It used to be a fun thing,'' she said, ``but it got to be a pain. One boy was killed out back of the store.'' A year later, sentiment is mixed on the cruising ban in Benson. There are those, like Maggie Parrish, who are glad to be rid of it. Pharmacist Frank Wells, the 64-year-old owner of Warren Drug Co., Inc., on Main Street, sometimes had to drive about six blocks out of his way on cruising nights when meeting a customer at the store to fill a prescription. ``You couldn't get on Main Street through the traffic,'' he said. ``Really, cruising stopped us from being open on Sundays. You couldn't get through the traffic.'' DIVERSION LOST On the other hand, there are those who believe the town has lost a great tradition, akin to Benson's annual Mule Days street festival. Along with that, some say cruising gave the local and area youths something to do. ``It doesn't give us anything to do anymore,'' said 16-year-old Travis Hobbs. ``Benson don't have nothing -- like a bowling alley. I try not to go down it (Main Street) too many times. I try to get along with them (Benson police), but I don't like it. It's a public road. Lots of parents don't like it. It's tradition.'' Hobbs, a junior at nearby South Johnston High School in Four Oaks, said his parents used to cruise the streets of Benson when they were coming of age. Ben McCullen, another 16-year-old student at South Johnston, said: ``All we tried to do was find wild women. That's what we tried to do.'' Jimmy Johnson met his girlfriend on a cruising night. Vance Wood -- nearly two decades older than Johnson -- met his wife. She just happened to pass by in a red 1972 Vega GT with her younger sister when Wood was walking out of what used to be a tavern called The Place on Railroad Street. That was one of the side streets cruisers used to circle around back through town before hooking up again with Main Street. ``There's been a lot of people married from cruising,'' said Johnson. He's the owner and operator of Benson Arcade, located next to Pat's Saddle Shop. In years past, cars, trucks, low riders and souped-up rides would rumble through this town, just inside the southwestern part of Johnston County. Benson, population 3,200, is a well-traveled town, a dot on a map with spokes. It's a town where Interstate 95, U.S. 301, and North Carolina highways 50, 27 and 242 come together. About three miles north of town, Interstate 40 meets I-95. ``In my day,'' said Wood, ``it was good entertainment. It was fun, and it was good clean fun. Really and truly it was a different environment. Somewhere down the road, a bad element mingled in. Whether it was drugs, or whatever,'' he said, without finishing the thought. DANGEROUS INCIDENTS On Aug. 28, a Johnston County jury found two men guilty of second-degree murder, of beating and stomping Airman 1st Class James J. Dormio, 21, of Cumberland, Md., to death in August 1996. Co-defendants Teddy Harmon, 26, of Coats, and Douglas Johnson, 17, of Benson, were sentenced to a minimum of 13 years and a maximum of 16 years in prison. Two other defendants, including Fort Bragg soldier Pfc. Steven Gustafson, a medic in the 82nd Airborne Division, are awaiting trial on murder charges in the case. At the time, police said Dormio had met the girlfriend of one of the men while cruising through Benson. Gustafson is still in the Army, according to Master Sgt. Ron Gardiner with the Division of Public Affairs for the 82nd Airborne Division. In an unrelated case, on Feb. 10, 1996, Christopher Wayne McLamb, of Benson, was shot and killed with a sawed-off shotgun. His body was found in the parking lot in an area behind Pat's Saddle Shop. Malcolm Pfeiffer of Spring Lake was found guilty of first-degree murder on Dec. 12, 1996, in Johnston County Superior Court. Pfeiffer is serving a life sentence for the killing. Over the past couple of years, there was an increase in drug traffic and problems with street gangs in Benson. ``We could see a change and an increase in assaults, property damage,'' said Benson Police Chief Donald D. Miller. ``Then when we started having deaths occur, murders, it was time to stop it. We had numerous assault cases, some serious assaults.'' BETTER TIMES It wasn't always that way. For years, cruising in Benson had more of a carefree, ``Happy Days'' innocence to it. ``When I was a kid growing up,'' said Maggie Parrish, ``there was a place called the Blue Top, a restaurant on 301 toward Dunn. Now it's an oil company. Then we'd go to Jeffrey's Diner, about a mile and a half outside of Benson.'' Folks would drive here from all over, Fayetteville, Newton Grove, Lillington, Angier, Four Oaks, Dunn and Raleigh, to name just some of the places. Their headlights lit up the town, settling on Benson to show off their rides. To meet girls. To meet guys. Cruising in Benson dated back at least 40 years, according to Miller. Some say it dated back even further. ``I believe they said people who had mules and buggies would cruise town,'' said Johnson. ``That's what I heard.'' Johnson is 32 and a lifelong resident of the area: ``We just had a reputation as where to cruise. It established Benson as the place to cruise.'' ROMANCE BLOOMS Vance Wood, who is 50, cruised the streets of town from 1960 to 1967. His senior year at Four Oaks High School, he and his brother Danny owned a red 1964 Ford Mustang, the year the car was first introduced on the market. Wood now works as a pharmacist in Dunn. On a hot September night in 1972, he met his wife, Ann Lee. She grew up only three miles from him, but he never noticed her until the night she cruised past. ``I said, `Hey baby, you going my way?' And she was dumb enough to pull over,'' said Wood, with a smile on his face at the 25-year-old memory. ``People pulled over and met people,'' he said. ``It was not gunfight at the O.K. Corral.'' Wood stood in front of the ticket office at South Johnston High School's football field, the lights from the stadium beaming into the darkness behind him. Wood once encouraged his children to go cruising before it was banned. ``(My children) told me cruising was a hostile environment,'' he said. He would like to see cruising allowed again, but in a controlled manner. Chief Miller said that won't ever happen. ``That's because of the crime it brings into the community,'' he said. The crime rate in Benson dropped 31 percent only three months after cruising was banned, according to Miller. The town is different now, he said: ``We're just like any other community with 3,200 people. Senior citizens are able to travel the streets and window shop. It's a quiet city. It's a nice place to raise children and live now.'' From September through November 1996, drug charges and arrests more than tripled over the same period in 1995, although the department's staff remained at 15 officers. By not having to put all his men on duty on cruising nights, Miller said the Benson police force has been able to concentrate on the drug problems and other types of serious crime. In addition, there were 125 fewer traffic violations; and, driving while impaired and other alcohol violations nosedived. What do the young people do, now that cruising is outlawed? Most of those who cruised, the locals say, were out-of- towners. ``A lot of the guys were from Fort Bragg,'' said Wood's wife, Ann Lee. ``It got to the point you had 25-, 26- and 27-year olds cruising Benson, picking up the kids.'' Nowadays, the local youths go to the arcade to shoot pool. They drive to the movie theaters in neighboring Smithfield or Dunn. They hold private parties. They congregate in a few of the parking lots around town, including the Piggly Wiggly, Burger King and Pat's, a privately owned grocery store on U.S. 301. `A DYING BREED' It's after 9 o'clock Friday night, and a small, intimate crowd is parked at Pat's. ``We're an endangered species,'' one of the young men said. ``We're a dying breed.'' Blond-haired Angie Carter sits in a black '97 Cavalier with a friend. Carter is 17 and from Stedman. By day, she works as a dental hygienist assistant. By night -- or at least five nights a week -- she's in Benson hanging out with friends. ``There's nothing else to do, I guess,'' she said, sitting behind the wheel. ``It's safer to go up here than Fayetteville 'cause you've got cops up here. We can still ride down there (on Main Street) and stuff, but there's no reason to. There's nobody there.'' Last June, Carter got a ``cruising'' ticket for driving down Main Street. Under the town's cruising ordinance, motorists cannot drive past a traffic control point more than three times within a two-hour period, from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., seven days a week. That's considered a cruising violation. The fine is $50 for this misdemeanor, which doesn't affect the driving record. Miller said tops, the Benson police have written ``maybe six'' citations for cruising over the last year. ``The law was complied with so quick,'' he said. ``We didn't have to cite anyone except those few we did cite. We have no problem. It amazes me how quick it went away.'' COMMERCIAL EFFECT Some business owners, some of these locals say, didn't want cruising banned because it took some of their revenue away. Gary Dutta, who helps operate the Tastee Freeze restaurant on Main Street, said he and his cousin, who owns the Coastal gas station, have lost 30 percent of their business over the last year. ``They used to buy stuff. They was buying,'' Dutta said of those who came to town to cruise. ``I agree if they (the police) protect the kids, I'd like to see it back. If they can't, we're better off without it. I don't mind losing the business.'' END OF THE EVENING The football game between South Johnston and Princeton High School is just about over. In the Burger King parking lot, four local teen-agers sit in the back of a Chevy S-10 pickup truck and listen to rock music by the late Kurt Cobain's band Nirvana. They've been there for about an hour. One wears a T-shirt with a Confederate flag on the back that reads: ``Many May Try But These Colors Won't Die.'' Across the street, the American flag is wrapped around a pole above Valvoline Lube Express. Renny Smith, who is 16, sipped on a cherry Coke Icee as he watched the cars drive by. ``Usually if we don't sit here,'' he said, ``we go to Pat's or the Piggy Wiggly. There ain't much cruising now. Not on Main Street.'' All the while, a steady stream of cars and trucks can be heard whizzing by on nearby I-95.