A drive-in movie theater is as American as baseball, apple pie and NASCAR.
Not as many of them as in past decades, but you can still find them in America’s heartland.
I’ve seen a few movies at drive-in theaters. Probably not as many as some folks, though.
The earliest? In the late 1950s in Rialto, California. My parents took my sister and I to see a Disney animated movie – either Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. Too far in the past to remember which movie.
In the decades since, I’ve seen maybe three more. I didn’t realize how few until now.
I double dated one time when I was in college. I sat in the backseat and had a lively make-out session with a hometown high school girl. I laugh now remembering the hugs and kisses…she was the aggressor. Again, I don’t recall the movie playing on the huge screen.
Another time I went to a drive-in with a buddy. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. We were driving southward toward Athens, Ohio, when we saw the movie theater to our right. We decided to go see the movie, a 1970s low-grade, exploitive flick. Not surprisingly, don’t remember the movie’s title.
Also in the 1970s when I lived in Lancaster, Ohio, I lived in the 1700 block of West Fair Avenue on the city’s west side. Every day I drove by a drive-in theater off of West Fair. One time I decided to see a movie by myself. Again, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. So I bought some beer and made myself at home in the theater. It was another exploitive movie with lots of scantily clad women running around and included a couple of catfights. A very forgettable movie. Obviously, I don’t remember the flick’s title. A bit like a repeating record, eh?
I expect some who are reading this blog post spent far more weekends at their favorite drive-in theater. Maybe they had a hot make-out session with their future husband or wife. Perhaps they put a bunch of friends in the trunk and snuck them into the theater.
Fun time, eh?
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I’m Mike Staton and I’m an author with six published novels. Three are sword and sorcery novels, and the last three have American Civil War settings. The latest, which debuted on May 1, takes place during Reconstruction in North Carolina, and stars a newspaper editor, and his wife, a graphic artist. It’s part of a four-book series that will see my main characters head westward into the American frontier in the final novel, now being written. I’m currently writing that fourth book, which I’ve titled A Wyoming Dawn: A New Beginning.
Writing Wranglers and Warriors 