At the Drive-In

When you think of a drive-in today you think of food-on-the-run. But back in the 1950s and Sixties a drive-in meant an outdoor movie theater. It was the biggest limestone parking lot in the world and the strangest and most exciting movie experience you’d probably ever have. The Drive-In Theater was a cinematic carnival that lasted all summer long.

The main features in the 1960s, when I was finally old enough to see the movie over the back of the front seat, were quite often Disney movies, and about half of them were animated. Dad got the speaker off a hook and pulled it toward us. He clipped it on his window and turned up the volume. Just for the heck of it he’d turn the volume clear off in the middle of a movie and we could still hear it. The sounds of swords clashing or six-shooters booming were carried on a wave of a hundred speakers into the atmosphere and, there we were, right in the middle of it. But the movie was just the tip of the iceberg.

There were cartoons and commercials for the concession stand. And there was the concession stand, a long flat concrete-block oasis in the middle of a limestone desert, full of smells that made your mouth water. Popcorn, pizza, hotdogs, french fries, soda in paper cups. Who needed the movie?

And then the Seventies came along and drive-in theaters all across America became vacant lots and weekend flea markets and porn theaters and no one seemed to notice or care.

I think few people would believe me if I told them that the first time I saw “Dr. Zhivago” I was sitting on the hood of a car and totally surrounded by trees.