Old-time street cruise helps Superior combat COVID isolation

Gas is cheap, food is primarily drive-through style, and the only place to catch up with neighbors is at the post office.

With businesses and school closures in place along with stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of the coronavirus this past month across Montana, one Mineral County resident couldn’t help but feel nostalgic.

How did people connect in communities before scrolling through Facebook?

Elaine Robinson grew up in Superior and she reminisced, “A long time ago, like way back when…friends would get together and drive the “over town loop” across the river and up past the bank then loop back down towards the school.”

These cruises usually happened after enjoying a show at the old Strand movie theater.

This was the inspiration for what Robinson coordinated and called the COVID Cruise that dozen or so county residents took part in the evening of Friday, April 24.

Robinson joked, “Although when we were younger, we’d cruise a lot later, bedtime for us older folks is around 9 p.m. so I figured we’d start the drive earlier.”

The cruisers gathered around 7:30 p.m. Friday night and drove up and down the streets of Superior until 8:30 p.m. waving, honking, seeing familiar faces.

Word had spread around the state of different organizations gathering to cruise around towns such as Malta, Glendive, and Kalispell.

Robinson supposed, “Most of us older folks haven’t gotten out much this past month or more, and we could all use the interaction from safe distance.” She added, “Everyone else has been having fun doing these around the state so I figured we need to get in on it and cruise around too, at least start it out in Superior.”

As Robinson started to share the idea online, she was also able to collaborate with Marlene Adair to benefit the Superior Food Bank program. As locals drove up and down Fourth Avenue they were encouraged to bring non-perishable food items to donate at a drop off point in the food bank parking lot.

Adair, with her daughter and son-in-law, Amanda and Tony Gramata, gathered bags of food from cruisers as they started driving the town.

While folks drove the loop if they passed by Superior High School they could see Friday night lights at the football field and the score board had a special time emblazoned, 20:20 left on the clock in honor of this year’s seniors.

Residents were reminded to practice social distancing, and stay in their cars as they saw their neighbors passing by. All Mineral County residents were welcome join in and Robinson noted, “Maybe it will inspire folks down in St. Regis to do a cruise next Friday or even in Alberton.”

Superior will host another cruise Friday from 7:30-8:30 p.m. All are welcome.

For those that participated it got them out of their homes and offered a chance to see their friends and neighbors and Robinson concluded, “What better way to help out the food bank!”