The Drive-In

There's tons of change that takes place during a person's life. I still remember my grandmother talking about the horse and buggy days. My mom would tell us about sleeping outside with her cousins at her aunt's house, which was next to the railroad tracks and waking up with soot all over them from the coal fired engines. The world is a whole different place - most of it is for the better. One of my best memories was the drive-in movie. There are still a few of them around, but nothing like the old days. The location of our drive-in is now a Sam's Club. Maybe it's because they took so much space and you could bring your own food and the sound systems wasn't like the theater - but for some reason they have gone the way of the dinosaurs. There was always at least one night a week that you could pay for the movie by the carload. They didn't care how many people were in the car. Now this was a bargain for our family - despite we didn't have a car that could fit all of us comfortably; I don't think they made a car that big. I'm the eighth of ten children; there is a twenty-year difference between the oldest and the youngest children. So by the time my youngest sister started taking up any room my oldest sister was long gone. There were also the teenagers that wouldn't be caught dead with the rest of us in public. But at the drive-in it was different, you could hide out until it was dark and you wanted to see the movie for sure. They had some rides that would run before the movies at the far side of the drive-in, they sure looked fun, I never found out because we didn't have enough money to ride them anyway. There also was a snack shop where you could buy popcorn, candy and drinks. But, who needed that? We brought our own! Mom would pop-up a big grocery bag of popcorn with real margarine, and dad would bring a jug of water and one glass to share. I always had to sit in the very back. The only problem was our station wagon's back seat faced the wrong way. So you had to kind of turn and lean on the seat or my favorite, we sat on the tailgate with our feet inside the car and the rest of us outside. I remember once a couple of us lay on the top of the car. I'm sure we were quite young since dad let us get away with it. The speaker wasn't very big and had a cord that connected to a pole. You took the speaker and put the back of it to the driver's window. I never thought how load it must have been for dad so we could all hear. But the car next you had one too so in the summer everyone had their windows open and so sometimes it even sounded like stereo. They always had a cartoon at the beginning of the movie which was a treat for us youngens. I can't remember one move we saw at the drive-in as a family. But I remember the experience and the fact that none of us complained after the movie started. I've taken my kids to a drive-in which is about an hour from home and always shows a double feature. Now they have a low frequency transmitter and it plays on your cars sound system. Besides the fact that we would get home at two or three in the morning, it's still a wonderful way to enjoy the movies as a family - unless the car next to you is a young couple that has come for other reasons.