What's A Drive-In?

Now Really, am I that old? After watching an old favorite western movie of mine called "Buck and the Preacher" I mentioned to my lady guest how I'd seen the movie as a kid at the drive-in, circa 1972. My lady friend, younger than me by a number of years and foreign born, innocently posed the question, What is a Drive-In? For a minute I thought she was joking, then I thought I'd better check her ID to be sure she was of legal age. It's okay she's thirty-something. I was relieved when she reminded me that in her country they lack such advanced technology. That's where my lie wanted to kicked in. Here's this sweet innocent young lady who worships every word as it passes through my lips, how could I disappoint her now? It's amazing how cool a drive-in sounds when describing it to someone who doesn't have a clue.


The more questions she asked the more I began to marvel at the intelligence and creativity that went into the initial concept of a drive-in. As I explain to her how the car entrance resembled toll-bridge booths and that you paid not by the carload but by number of persons in the car, she stared almost in disbelief. She then asked how could you hear the movie if the speakers were up near the big screen and your windows were up? I explained the drive-in speakers by referencing a street parking meter as a distant cousin to it. I dare you to try explaining to someone who's never had the drive-in experience how you attach this clunk of oversized junkyard metal to the inner part of your car window and turn a rusty old broken knob in hopes of hearing something that resembles movie dialogue with the least crackle and pop background noise.

She got a real kick out of what it's like arriving before sundown. How did YOU kill time before the drive-in movie began? Or the honking at the car who arrived late and didn't have the courtesy to turn his headlights off and put those yellow parker lights to good use for a change.

The one question I really had a hard time answering or remembering how we did it was seeing the screen from the back seat. Unless you were busy trying to make a move on your girl, just how the heck did you see the movie from the back seat of a ford pinto? Whoever invented the automobile headrest had never watched a drive-in movie from the backseat, that's for sure.

By the time she'd exhausted her curiousity of Drive-ins and realized that what she'd thought was cutting edge technology was actually little more than Flintstones Brainpower, I was totally enwrapped in the walk down memory lane. I must've gone on for 45 minues or so telling her how we'd sneak in curled up in the trunk or how we'd sit on top of someone as the toll collector counted heads in the car. Sure some of the drive-ins got a bit advance tech. by getting the sound on shortwave radio for viewers, but that would come years later. My memories pretty much end around teenager years which for me was late 70's early 80's.

After all the fun memories and funny stories, like watching someone drive off with a speaker still attached or hearing loud snoring from the car next to you, the final question was about food. My take on the drive-in food? Candy and popcorn were better than today's theatres and at a third the cost, but anything passing for meat you best stay away from. The stray cats wouldn't even touch the meat, I still wonder why? You really had to be hungry to eat the cellophane wrapped, fluorescent-light heated burgers and hotdogs from a drive-in food stand that was always a five mile trek across moonlike terrain in the dark to get to. But then again, when you're that young and adventurous the taste buds are as naive as most other teenage senses.

So in summary what's a Drive-in? Community Television Viewed From An Automobile, remote Not Included? Motel 6 for teens? Or maybe Movieland on Mars. Whatever a Drive-in is, it left one helluva imprint on my psychological development and I'm sure many others as well. And some of the best imprints are of me as an adolescent or younger enjoying movies outdoors with family and friends and maybe a stray cat or two.

And Where Did the Drive-in Concept Come From? Click Here.