Recently I read about what amounts to another nail being driven into the coffin of drive-in theaters in this country.
There have been other reports over the years alluding the coming demise of an entertainment medium that once dotted this country's landscape, especially in more rural areas.
This particular article, an Associated Press story, was built around digitization - and how move producers are slowly eliminating 35mm film and turning to digital copies of their movies for use in theaters around the county. The story noted the cost to convert projection equipment from 35mm to digital, especially for single-screen, mostly mom-and-pop drive-ins, and how this was likely to result in more of them closing.
In its heyday of the 1950s and '60s, the drive-in theater industry boasted 4,000 operations nationwide, 130 in Georgia. That number has now dwindled to 357, nationwide, and five in Georgia, according to driveins.com - one each in Atlanta, Blue Ridge, Jesup, Trenton and Tiger (in Rabun County). That site also lists closed drive-ins and, in many instances, a little history about each one and what became of the property once an operation was closed.
The first one opened 80 years ago, on June 6, 1933, in Camden, N.J.
I very well remember my first visit to a drive-in theater. It was in the early '50s and the movie was 1951's "The Man From Planet X." That was at the Pines Drive-In in Tifton, Georgia. Like many others, it is long gone.
I spent most of my childhood in Moultrie, Georgia, just down the road from Tifton, which was home to the Sunset Drive-In, During the summer, the owners employed mosquito control by having a car or truck with a sprayer attached to the rear periodically drive up and down the rows of vehicles, dispensing who-knows-what, probably the now-outlawed DDT, to control the little buggers.
Gainesville, at one time, had two - the Skyview on Atlanta Highway and the Lake Lanier on Thompson Bridge Road. Atlanta had several during the 1950s and '60s. There was even one near that now infamous interstate highway interchange known as Spaghetti Junction.
It was at a drive-in that I experienced the beginning of one of the first significant snowfalls that I had witnessed to that point in my life. This was in the day when weather forecasters didn't start warning us days or weeks in advance of the possibly of a snowstorm. To my knowledge, this one came as a complete surprise. At least it was to me.
Other memories of drive-ins include being fascinated as a youngster by watching the spinning movie reels feeding film through the projector on those nights during the summer when the door to the projection building happen to be open; sitting on the hood or front fenders of the car while watching the movie or sitting at picnic tables next to the concession stand while enjoying a snack; and the feeling of joy when, after dinner, or "supper" as we called it, on a Friday or Saturday night, Dad would announce "let's go to the drive-in."
I could go on, but, ahem, as many of you probably know, some things that happen at the drive-in... stay at the drive-in.
Drive-in theaters: RIP? Let's hope not.
Here's to another 80 years
(Ken Stanford is Contributing Editor and retired, longtime News Director for WDUN-AM 550, WDUN-FM 102.9, 1240 ESPN Radio, and AccessNorthGa.com.)
http://accesswdun.com/article/2013/9/266110