*************************************************
ARE THERE ANY LEFT...ANYWHERE?
*************************************************
Don't you sometimes miss, in the good old summertime, filling your ice chest with chopped ice, diet Pepsis (and big orange drinks, if you've got little kids, or grandkids), popping a big sack full of popcorn, dousing it with butter (when the wife is not looking), and heading out to your nearest local drive-in movie?! Such a trip is a good old American custom---mostly gone---I fear! But why?
The very first drive-in movie theater is thought to have been opened in New Jersey in 1933. Not much further information exists until after WWII, when drive-ins became very popular and the custom reached its heyday sometime in the 1950's. At this time, the number of drive-in movie theaters in the United States is estimated to have been more than 4000. By 1997, the total was 815, and there are now thought to be about 366. A few states have none, most states have several, and the states with the most are Pennsylvania--33, Ohio--31, and New York--30.
The demise of this much-loved American institution (?) has been attributed thusly, by the cognoscenti: the pinch of more and more and better TV channels, the variety of programs, the advent of VCR's and other recording devices, plenty of movie rentals available, and the spread of cable TV.
I have a couple more reasons to add to the demise factors. Since I saw my first movie at a drive-in some 66 years ago---there south of Clovis---times have changed considerably.
Why, in those days, people didn't lock their homes...many not even at night. (My dad didn't fool with any locking, and it was old scaredy I that latched the screens, in the summer, when
nights were hot.)
Nowadays, with crime, foul-play, and carjackings, at a drive-in you would need to have your .45 pistol on the front seat, "cocked-and-locked," and when the ski-mask guy points his piece in your face as you are leaning partly out of the open window, enjoying the movie and the fresh air, and says: "Pal, move over, we're leaving, I'm taking your car!" You then whip your .45 up into his face, and say: "Heavens no, Pal! Take a hike!"
However, don't you hate confrontations like that? I do. They tend to raise your blood pressure and the adrenalin kicks in.
Another theory I have about the loss of drive-ins relates to economic factors. The saying is: "Always follow the money." You see, it would likely be difficult to charge five people in an auto, $8.00 each to drive into a movie (not counting those in the trunk, of course), but they pay those prices nowadays at regular theaters.
Then at the drive-in, could you charge $3.50-5.00 for a sack of popcorn or a coke? No. Or five bucks for a hot dog? Ya think? Your "street-smart," drive-in smart kids, would bring their own DELI with them, beverages and all! It would be just like tail-gating, without a tailgate or even getting out of the car. So money has to be a factor.
To tell the plain old truth, while my wife and I liked them, we never went to that many. The first one I went to was at that drive-in a mile south of Clovis. The movie was Henry Fonda and Linda Darnell, in "MY DARLING CLEMENTINE." It was a good western, with dark-like photography. Later, I found out that it was not the drive-in which caused it,but it was simply a dark movie.
Then my wife and I were in the SWBT Seminary in Ft. Worth, summer of 1960, and drove twenty-five miles out to a Grapevine,Tx. drive-in, to watch the highly-touted "ANATOMY OF A MURDER" with James Stewart and Lee Remick. Leaning over, relaxing, with my head half out the car window, with that cool night air, I slept through that one!
There were others which I don't remember, but the last one was here in Albuquerque, circa 1990. My secretary was constantly telling about all this fun of taking her husband and kids out to one of the two drive-ins left here then. So the wife and I went one nice summer night, popcorn, Pepsis, and all! Arranging myself in my proper head-half-out-the-window position,
"TORA, TORA, TORA" came on, and as the Jap planes droned across the northern Pacific,
toward our sleeping forces at Pearl Harbor, I too was sleeping!
I might still like to go to a drive-in movie, now and then, if for nothing but old time's sake---just to re-live a piece of Americana. However, my gunfighting days are over, and we would need a rent-a-guard for the back seat.
Carjackers are still out there, you know!
(I never did get to kiss a girl at a drive-in, so I might just SMACK MY WIFE of 56 years...
a big one!)
BY MIL
10/05/12
Sent from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment