How many of you remember going to the drive in movie on a Friday or Saturday night. Remember being able to go for $5 a carload?? When I was in high school my friends and I would get together with whoever was lucky enough to have access to a car, pack a picnic and head for the drivein. Scarey movies were our favorite. We would all gather together and enjoy our picnic treats and watch the movie. It was such fun and we always looked forward to our weekend night outing.
We used to have a drive-in movie at our little town in Idaho when i was growing up. Ours had the $5 per carload special, too, and all of the teenagers would pack into the car to go to the movie. I always went with my parents, and it was a great family evening for us. There were always at least two movies, and sometimes there were three, which went on until the wee hours of the morning. Even when there were only two movies, they always showed the first one over again, so if you had arrived too late for the beginning, then you could watch the second showing and see the first part that you had missed. We would always see a car here and there pulling out and going home as they got to the part where they came in at the first showing. I think that a lot of the kids probably just stayed for the second showing regardless of what time they got there. Our drive-in had swing sets up in front of the movie screen, so up until the movie started, kids were aleays out there playing, and then made a mad dash for their car when the movie actually came on. Intermission was always a great time, too ! The concession stand had hotdogs, candy, popcorn and snow cones. They had a chocolate drink which was served in a can , and it was called a Hot Toddy. Actually, you could have it either hot or chilled, and they kept a good supply of both the hot cocoa and the chilled ones, and it was awesome either way. Even after I grew up and got married, they still had some drive-ins left, and when my kids were little, we used to take them all to the drive-in movies, too. It is kind of a shame that they were replaced by the giant movie theaters with so many movies in them. And, of course, there is no way that you can take the whole family for food end entertainment and spend under $10 anymore, either....
The Drive-In was one of the few places I was allowed to go to when I was allowed to start dating. I liked to go to the Drive-In as a group of friends to watch a movie. I sort of wish they were still around, it would be a good family outting, non-techie night out.
Yvonne, I remeber there being a playground and picnice tables in front of the car spaces at our drive in. San Antonio had about 10 driveins spread around town, so we could always find one that was playing movies we wanted to see. And they all had snack bars with all kinds of yummy goodies we could buy when we were done with the food we had brought with us. It was always a fun evening whether we went with our families or with our school friends. We had one here in town until about 20 yrs ago and there was one in Arab until about 15 yrs ago.
Ours was a small town; so there was only one, and we called it the "Motor Movie" . I can't remember if that was the actual name for it, or if that was just the name my mom chose for it. My mom had her own names for places we often went to; so it very well could have been just what she named it. One restaurant that we used to go to a lot had been painted a purple color (who knows why ?) and she called it " The Purple Cow". If you haven't guessed by now; I had an interesting (and wonderful) childhood. Anyway (back on topic after a slight stray), the Motor Movie was located a mile or two out of town on the highway. It was not very far away from our A&W Drive-in; so on weekends the A&W stayed open later to catch the people leaving the movies. We often stopped in for a wonderful A&W root beer float on the way home after the show; and that became part of the ritual. Even though we did not have all of the gadgets and conveniences that we have nowdays; life just seemed so easy and simple back in the Fifties, and drive-in movies were just a part of that charm.
I had never had the opportunity go to the drive in movie because when these were common in this city I was too young to go there, and all of them were closed by the time I was a teenager and would like to have some fun going to one of them.
Drive ins were definitly a lot of fun and when they were $5 a carload they were cheap entertainment for us teenagers as well as for families. It seemed that sometimes the movie we wanted to see was so popular that it was actually sold out by the time we got there so we would have to pick a different one to go see.
We stilll have a drive in around here. I love taking the grandchildren to it. It is like a step back in time. They were definitely the days when we would all pile into one car to go see a movie. We would even have people in the trunk. So many wonderful memories were mad at the drive in!