I was reading the other day that one of the places, besides crowded bars and restaurants, to stay out of is movie theaters. That got me to thinking about movies when I was growing up. At it\u2019s peak growth, Maysville had two movie theaters (that was before television.) I know both readers of this blog don\u2019t believe there was a time before television \u2014 but I\u2019m getting off the subject. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Something that there were a lot of when I was growing up were Drive-in Theaters. There are a few still left, but if you can find one, it\u2019s the ideal place to go to a movie in the middle of this coronavirus thing. If you\u2019ve never been to a drive-in movie, you park your car facing the big screen and the sound is piped into your car via a speaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I was a kid, drive-ins were very popular. There was one just a few miles from our house and they often had \u201cdollar nights.\u201d That meant that each car was only charged a dollar to get in, no matter how many people were in the car. Normally, there was a charge for each person in the car. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once when I was in high school, a friend whose dad was a farmer, borrowed his dad\u2019s truck that he used to haul hay. It was an 18-wheeler with a big flat-bed trailer. We gathered up about 30 or 40 kids (that was just about all the kids in Maysville) on the flat bed and went to the movies. They initially said that dollar night didn\u2019t apply to 18-wheelers with almost fifty people on board, but I guess they thought it was funny, or just plain stupid, and they let us in \u2014 and posted a sign that dollar night didn\u2019t apply to 18-wheelers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a lot of fun, and unfortunately \u2014 no, probably fortunately, the kind of fun kids today can\u2019t experience. Imagine a flat bed truck tooling down the highway with thirty or forty kids. There were obviously no seat belts, and not even any sides on the truck. Of course that\u2019s not the only thing we did that is totally unacceptable, or even illegal today\u2026. I remember:
Building my own skateboard with old lumber and old metal roller skates, carrying someone on the handlebars, or the cross bar of a boys bike \u2014 no helmets, playing in the street (no supervision,) walking to school or the movies alone, and calling people on the phone asking if \u201ctheir refrigerator was running,\u201d of if they \u201chad Prince Albert in a can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For those of you that don\u2019t understand these things, ask someone that\u2019s \u201cmature,\u201d or do some extensive research on your own.\u00a0
But \u2014 if there happens to be a drive-in movie theater anywhere near you, and you\u2019ve never been \u2014 GO!
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was reading the other day that one of the places, besides crowded bars and restaurants, to stay out of is movie theaters. That got me to thinking about movies when I was growing up. At it\u2019s peak growth, Maysville … Continue reading