Going To The Drive-In Movie

by Karl Nichols

The Drive-In Movie was a weekend fixture in my family’s plans as it was with so many other American families and when it disappeared, we didn’t even realize it. The transition from Drive-Ins to TV & Video/DVD Rentals was so subtle and smooth that nobody even thought to say goodbye. I remember, after the Air-conditioning was installed and we bought the color TV, we didn’t think about the Drive-In Movies anymore, the industry just bled to death out of site and mind.

The first time I realized this was in 1987 when we moved into a new house in a new city and there, as big as life, sitting beside the entry to our new subdivision was a Drive-In Movie Theater. My 9-year-old daughter said, “Dad, what is that?” She was the last of our 4 kids and the only one who was still at home, and as I thought about the answer to her question, I realized that I hadn’t been to a Drive-In Movie in at least 10 years, my daughter’s question was proof of that.

We are still living in that house, and my daughter just graduated from college, but the Drive-In is gone, about 10 years now. Gone the way of the Buffalo and the Outhouse, crowded out by a civilization that ruthlessly moves on, discarding the bodies of past technology in it’s wake and such was the fate of the Dive-In Movie, left behind like a discarded 8-Track Cartridge.

What brings about this maudlin sentimentality for the Drive-In? I was recently surfing the Net and ran across the website http://www.driveinmovie.com/ which is dedicated to helping people who are looking for Drive-Ins. The site has all(?) the Drive-Ins listed state by state to help those of us who still wish to be eaten by mosquitoes while sweating copiously, having to use smelly over crowded restrooms and eat bad carryout food which is cold by the time we stumble around looking for and finally finding our car. Man that is what I call a good time! The old saying that “Hindsight is 20-20” could actually be restated as “Memories are blind as a bat”! See ya at the Drive-In next week.

Copyright KL Nichols 2008