Drive-ins
Sparked by a trip down the highway past our last remaining drive in...
Did you ever go to the drive in theatre with your parents as a kid? Or with a date on Saturday night? Did you ever pull an all nighter at said theatre and then drive home at dawn? Oh my, those were the days. In the years before VCRs and DVDs and home movie theatres, the only time you got to see a show was at the local cinema or on Sunday afternoon matinees. There were only a handful of stations, evenings were dedicated to dramas, variety shows, and westerns, and nighttime movies were reserved for late Friday or Saturday.
As a child in the sixties, it was not uncommon to go to the drive in. I can distinctly remember loading the cooler with pop (a rare treat), Mom popping a big pan of popcorn, and then telling my to hop into my pjs and grab my pillow. Hey, I was a kid. I fell asleep long before the grownups. The back seat was my haven. :)
I can remember Dad parking the car just right so that you were angled properly to see the screen without straining and so that a speaker would reach from both the driver and passenger sides for stereo sound. That was quite a trick as I later learned. I was all excited as I waited for the opening cartoon. Remember, back then, cartoons were seen on Saturday mornings. No Nickelodeon or Cartoon network back then.
Remember the old concession stand with its yellow lights rimming the roofline? As I recall, the film frames of the popping corn and sales counter were a bit dated, even back then. Can you recall the countdown during intermission with the dancing drink cups, hot dogs, and candy bars? Oh, and let's not forget the countdown clock and the announcer proclaiming "It's ONE MINUTE til SHOWTIME!"
In my high school years, the drive in occasionally ran all night beach bikini flicks where girls got in free if wearing a swimsuit. Now, the year I graduated, '74, was the height of streaking and that year, guys got in free by ... you guessed it...wearing only their birthday suit. I can still remember sitting just off to the left rear of the concession stand in my friend Lynn's big truck with the ah-oooo-gah horn. We preset the lights to brights and then shut everything down, just in anticipation of what was sure to be the main entertainment. Our competitor track team had already streaked the high school more than once and this seemed an open invitation. We were not disappointed. After it was fully dark, just as the second movie started, a magnificent male specimen came straight toward our vantage point. Lynn, who was poised and ready, hit those brights and the horn. Talk about a deer in the headlights! Oh the cat calls. That fellow got one heck of a standing ovation but didn't stay around to accept the accolades. All we got was a full moon...
Submarine races anyone?
Those were the days.
Dawn
Did you ever go to the drive in theatre with your parents as a kid? Or with a date on Saturday night? Did you ever pull an all nighter at said theatre and then drive home at dawn? Oh my, those were the days. In the years before VCRs and DVDs and home movie theatres, the only time you got to see a show was at the local cinema or on Sunday afternoon matinees. There were only a handful of stations, evenings were dedicated to dramas, variety shows, and westerns, and nighttime movies were reserved for late Friday or Saturday.
As a child in the sixties, it was not uncommon to go to the drive in. I can distinctly remember loading the cooler with pop (a rare treat), Mom popping a big pan of popcorn, and then telling my to hop into my pjs and grab my pillow. Hey, I was a kid. I fell asleep long before the grownups. The back seat was my haven. :)
I can remember Dad parking the car just right so that you were angled properly to see the screen without straining and so that a speaker would reach from both the driver and passenger sides for stereo sound. That was quite a trick as I later learned. I was all excited as I waited for the opening cartoon. Remember, back then, cartoons were seen on Saturday mornings. No Nickelodeon or Cartoon network back then.
Remember the old concession stand with its yellow lights rimming the roofline? As I recall, the film frames of the popping corn and sales counter were a bit dated, even back then. Can you recall the countdown during intermission with the dancing drink cups, hot dogs, and candy bars? Oh, and let's not forget the countdown clock and the announcer proclaiming "It's ONE MINUTE til SHOWTIME!"
In my high school years, the drive in occasionally ran all night beach bikini flicks where girls got in free if wearing a swimsuit. Now, the year I graduated, '74, was the height of streaking and that year, guys got in free by ... you guessed it...wearing only their birthday suit. I can still remember sitting just off to the left rear of the concession stand in my friend Lynn's big truck with the ah-oooo-gah horn. We preset the lights to brights and then shut everything down, just in anticipation of what was sure to be the main entertainment. Our competitor track team had already streaked the high school more than once and this seemed an open invitation. We were not disappointed. After it was fully dark, just as the second movie started, a magnificent male specimen came straight toward our vantage point. Lynn, who was poised and ready, hit those brights and the horn. Talk about a deer in the headlights! Oh the cat calls. That fellow got one heck of a standing ovation but didn't stay around to accept the accolades. All we got was a full moon...
Submarine races anyone?
Those were the days.
Dawn
posted by Dawn | 10:52 PM
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