The drive-in theater used to be right down there around four-points, in Tallahassee. In those days, there wasn’t much for young people to do in the summertime when school was out. So, for excitement, on weekends, we’d load up, grab a six-pack, and head to the drive-in. Of course, we’d have to stop several times to pick up friends. These friends would hide in our trunk, unseen by the ticket man. This would thereby save us several dollars in admission fees. Plus, it was fun.
In the summertime, when biting insects were out, you could buy these mosquito repellent coils from the concession stand. When lit, they would burn around and around till the end of the coil, producing some evil smelling smoke that ran everything off except drunk, sweaty teenagers. We didn’t have air-conditioned cars in those days, so the windows were rolled down to let in the breeze (and the bugs). You lit the end of the coil, sat it on the dashboard, and choked your way through the first part of the movie. Then there were the speakers. They sat up on metal poles and were attached to the sound track by wires. You hooked them to the window frame and tried to hear what was going on by ignoring static caused by old, crimped wires.
If the movie was boring, or if the commercials for the concession stand came on, you could always walk around looking in cars to see who was there with whom. At times, this was more entertaining than the movie. Especially when it involved some of the local politicians or school teachers. Then there was the concession stand. The pizza slices and hot dogs looked great on their commercials and almost always caused pangs of hunger. In reality, these refreshments usually tasted like greasy cardboard and caused a turmoil of the innards.
By the late seventies, the drive-in was showing C grade films and a lot of the speakers were stolen, or just missing, or not functioning. The new indoor movie theaters were air-conditioned and heated, with comfortable seating and surround-sound. Some of the shopping malls had two or more theaters, so you had a choice of what to watch. Inevitably, the drive-in closed for good. For those of us who had lain scrunched up in a hot trunk while our giggling friends paid admission for two, drank warm beer, or spied on secret lovers in dark corners of the parking lot, this was a sad event. Those delightful movies about talking horses and singing cowboys, mosquito coils, and rusty speakers, would be evermore relegated to the dusty attic shelves of our nostalgia.
