Drive-ins

Drive-in movies, you have to love them. For those of you not fortunate enough to experience a drive-in move, hopefully my memories will enlighten you. As the name implies, these movies were outdoors. They were designed with parking stations and amplifiers hanging from poles. Upon pulling into the parking space, the driver would hang the box on the window, creating almost theater quality sound. The screen was big! The “theater” was vast, much like a pasture field on a farm.

As imagined, this was a great venue for dating. Single and double dating were both commonly seen at drive-in movies. The cost was reasonable and concessions were relatively affordable. Compared with theater tickets and concessions now, it was actually dirt cheap! Many wonderful memories were created in drive-in movies. Memories of young, passionate love, hearts beating as one, as the sound permeates the car, and the big screen flashes with love, horror, or whatever was playing. Most drive-in theaters played relatively new movies. Sometimes, we would gather in groups of several “car loads”, parking in the back, and sitting on car hoods, to watch a particular movie. Those were times of great comrade, and remembered, with stories that grew, with the telling. Yes, those were the days, and I am truly saddened that this generation of teens did not experience the excitement of the drive-in movies.

I remember one time when I was in high school, practicing my craft, and word arrived that someone’s boyfriend was at the drive-in with another girl. Could we let this information slide by, gracefully, in adult fashion? Noooooo, of course not. Every true blooded teen would consider this a challenge. We hurriedly left the school, and raced to the drive-in. We had no desire to stay for the movie, only catch the culprit in action. Upon arriving at the ticket booth, we hurriedly expressed to the employee, we would not be viewing the movie, and our mission was to find someone. We were admitted, with instructions to park the car and walk. Obediently, all eight girls climbed out of the car and embarked on the mission… on foot. I know you are thinking, “What is so dramatic about being on foot”? Well, the drama came from the movie that was playing. It was The Birds, an Alfred Hitchcock thriller! While the birds screeched and flapped their wings on the big screen, the audience watched in horror. With nerves on end, eight girls walked through parked cars, among the flapping and screeching. It was certainly an adventure, never to be forgotten. Oh yes… we found the cheating boyfriend!

Another memory was from a younger time in my life. My sister wanted me to ask our Dad, to borrow the family car. She and her boyfriend wanted to go to the drive-in movies. Not quite old enough to date, I said yes, contingent upon being able to tag along. A friend was “sleeping over”, and went with us to the movies. Just before we arrived at the drive-in, my sister’s boyfriend pulled the car to the side of the road. To our surprise, he said, “Get in the trunk”. Did I let that go without argument? Of course not, but the end result was the same. Explaining he had no money, to pay for our ticket, we would have to “sneak” in, without paying. Determining we had no cash, we begrudgingly climbed into the trunk. We were livid with emotions. We were mad, humiliated, scared and … afraid we would ruin our new white shorts! Our promising night had turned into an ugly reality. What if someone caught us? What humiliation … it would ruin us for life … or so we thought! Stuffed in the trunk, we could hear everything in amplification. We were mortified when we heard my sister’s boyfriend telling the employee at the ticket booth, he had two passengers in the trunk. We were sure someone with badges and hand cuffs would come for us. Our hearts were pounding, as we pulled into a parking space. My sister said, “You need to let them out”, but the reply was, “not yet, let them pay for coming along”. Well, let me tell you, we spent several long minutes in that trunk, listening to them talk and my sister begging for our release. I’m not sure what scared us the most, dying from lack of oxygen, being caught “sneaking” in the drive-in, or ruining our new white shorts. I know only that I was miserable and did not enjoy one thing about that night. Needless to say, I never wanted to go on a date with them again… lesson learned. I found out later, he had actually paid for our tickets.

Source: K. P. Guessen