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Way back in 2009 was the last time I went to a drive-in movie.
Marv and I saw District 9.
I remember going frequently to drive-ins when I was a child and reasonably often as an adult.
Until the places started to disappear.
The place Marv and I went, the one time, has finally shut down.
It's partially our fault, we didn't go in the past 13 years. But it appears that we weren't alone in avoiding the place.
But we weren't alone.
One culprit, mentioned by the owners, was that land is getting to be dear and they could make a ton more selling it than they would in decades of keeping the theater open.
Land cost is what killed many winter grown ag fields in the Texas RGV. Hard freezes in '83 and '89 devastated citrus groves, and rather than plant another and know the future possibility, they cashed in their chips. Now we get multiple Wal-Marts - Targets and such. The place has no resemblance whatsoever to the past I grew up in. Damn it - Joni Mitchell called it right.
ReplyDeletejrg
drive-ins died of cultural change. people forgot how to act in public and the experience became rather unpleasant. kids running around like hooligans screaming and doing everything but watching the movie, idiots driving up and down the line with headlights on blaring boom-boom "music", fights at the concession stand. its a shame. i don't go to the movies at all any more for the same reasons. its funny, anywhere else you can't get people to talk, too busy staring at their phones. movie comes on, they think its a grand time to have a chat.
ReplyDeleteI spent many, many nights in a drive-in as a kid. They've been dying off for a long time. Yet another part of Americana that has gone away.
ReplyDeleteIt's partially our fault, we didn't go in the past 13 years. Maybe partially like 1 part per million - .001%.
Like every other instance I can think of, there's nothing that any one person could do to keep a business like that drive-in open.