{"id":4690,"date":"2018-08-07T15:43:24","date_gmt":"2018-08-07T15:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kelolandblogs.com\/lundatlarge\/?p=4690"},"modified":"2023-07-20T20:59:59","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T20:59:59","slug":"drive-in-movie-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/drive-in-movie-memories\/","title":{"rendered":"Drive-In Movie Memories"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"drive<\/a><\/p>\n

Add sweet cream butter to hot popcorn mix it up, wrap it up, buttercup is born.It\u2019s delicious, so nutritious, it\u2019s a taste delight It\u2019s so munchy, crisp and crunchy, you\u2019ll enjoy each bite. Eat Butter drenched Buttercup, popcorn at its best Served in a king sized cup. It beats all the rest.<\/em><\/p>\n

Okay, anybody else remember that little ditty?\"drive<\/a><\/p>\n

It takes me back to the 50\u2019s and 60’going to the drive-in movie with my dad, mom and two brothers.
\nIt meant that intermission had started and time for brother, Denny and me to race to the snack bar and load up on food and refreshments before the feature movie started. We only had ten minutes and could watch the time ticking away on the big outdoor screen as they ran a film of a clock counting backwards to zero and showtime.\"drive<\/a><\/p>\n

Besides Buttercup popcorn, there were hot dogs or barbeque beef sandwiches served in a tin foil type of wrapper. There was some god-awful chocolate drink in a can called \u201cToddy\u201d which I only tried once. There were all kinds of ice cream treats, candy and soda. Plus if the mosquitoes were bad you could buy a PIC insect repellent coil. It looked like a small burner on an electric stove. It came in a metal tray which you\u2019d set on the car dashboard and light with a match.
\nLittle wisps of purfumey smoke would result..so bad it made us gag.
\nIt too was a one-time experiment. I don\u2019t remember if it actually kept the bugs away or not.
\nI remember we\u2019d have to do a balancing act trying to carry food and drinks for the whole family back to the car on those flimsy cardboard trays hoping we\u2019d get there before the outdoor lights were turned off and we\u2019d be lost forever amid a sea of automobiles.<\/p>\n

When the Sioux Drive-In opened South of Brookings in the early 50\u2019s my dad and mom just loved the novelty of it and we hardly ever missed a show.
\nThe theater gave out movie schedules for each month during the summer and mom kept it scotch taped to the kitchen cabinet so we could plan which ones we were going to see.
\nWe\u2019d arrive early to get a good spot..hang the speaker on the window and people-watch\u00a0 until the previews began at dusk.
\nThere were rest rooms at the snack bar building but mom always brought along an empty Folgers coffee can for us boys to use so we wouldn\u2019t be roaming around in the dark or have to miss any of Ma and Pa Kettle or Francis the Talking Mule movies.
\nAs entertaining as it was, though, it was hard sometimes for us to stay awake crowded in the back seat and in a rare gesture of brotherly love, there was usually no objection if one laid his head on the other\u2019s shoulder.<\/p>\n

South Dakota once had 31 drive-in theaters. At last count there were six left. There are lots of reasons for their demise, of course.<\/p>\n

Back in their\u00a0 heyday, there was no such thing as daylight saving time meaning dusk occurred around 8:30 in the summer months.\u00a0 But today, if there’s a double feature it\u2019s two in the morning before the show\u2019s over. Too late for most working stiffs and those of us retired folks whose eyelids start to sag at the stroke of 9.<\/p>\n

Back in the 50\u2019s and 60\u2019s, people who went to the Drive-In did so in a CAR. There were rows of gravel humps at varying degrees of slopeiness from front to back on which you\u2019d pull the front wheels for a clear view of the screen then grab the speaker and hook it onto the window.\u00a0
\n<\/a> But as Linda and I discovered while checking out the Verne Drive-In just outside Luverne some time ago, most people now drive high profile pick-ups, vans and SUVs. Theater managers plead over the loud speaker for patrons in big vehicles to park toward the rear so as not to block\u00a0other\u2019s view, but if you\u2019re in a Prius or little Camaro convertible,\u00a0 you’ll get lost in a canyon of Caravans, Suburbans and Ford F250\u2019s.\"drive<\/a><\/p>\n

Also, the few remaining Drive-In theaters have long since abandoned the idea of providing speakers on poles. In part, I suppose, because they became collector\u2019s items for thieves or got destroyed by cars snagging the cord with their bumper..back when cars still had bumpers. \"drive<\/a>Instead, audio is transmitted over an FM frequency you can pick up on your radio. Just make sure your battery is capable of dealing with the 4 hour drain.
\nThe nice thing about speaker poles is they used to keep vehicles properly spaced apart. Now, it\u2019s sort of like festival seating at a rock concert with ugly stares or a verbal rebuke coming from the guy next to you if you park too close.<\/p>\n

I see the new Mission Impossible movie is coming to the Verne Drive-in. Maybe we’ll try it again and make sure to leave early enough to get a spot on the front row.<\/p>\n

I’m thinking about even throwing an empty coffee can in the car for old time\u2019s sake..but Linda will likely say no.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Add sweet cream butter to hot popcorn mix it up, wrap it up, buttercup is born.It\u2019s delicious, so nutritious, it\u2019s a taste delight It\u2019s so munchy, crisp and crunchy, you\u2019ll enjoy each bite. Eat Butter drenched Buttercup, popcorn at its best Served in a king sized cup. It beats all the rest. Okay, anybody else…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lund-at-large","category-60","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11493,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4690\/revisions\/11493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}