Where I live there are two dead drive-in theaters.  Yesterday as I was riding my bicycle to stay in shape I passed two dead drive-ins and took photos of them.

      The first still has the giant movie screen.  I did close-up photos of the screen front and back.  This drive-in did not have the old car window speakers, but I saw where the old movie projector booth was.  Then I saw the old restrooms.  I saw that trees have grown in front of the giant movie screen. In its heyday there were no trees growing there.

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      The second drive-in did not have the old giant screen.  There were a lot of trees growing there.  The floor where the movie projector booth was was still there.  I have my bicycle parked where the projection booth was.

      I remember drive-ins back in the 1970s.  But back then is when they were beginning to die out.  Drive-ins started in the 1930s.  In the 1950s the drive-ins were in their giant heydays!!  And the 1950s were the golden age of science fiction movies.  There were lots of sf classics!  And most of them were playing in drive-ins.  A lot of B movies were playing in them too…

      Drive-in theaters were a family place.  I remember playing in their playgrounds and watching Fred Flintstone cartoons.  As the Flintstone show started, Fred Flintstone got done at work and got off his dinosaur and got in his car to go home to his wife and baby and friends.  Then they went to the drive-in to see the Flintstones movie. He took the speaker off the stand and clipped it on the window of his car. Then he looks at the giant movie screen. He watched a science fiction movie called THE PTERODACTYLOID FROM OUTER SPACE.

      I remember intermissions when my father took me and my older brother to the concession stand.  On the screen was pictures of the concessions we were buying.

      I think there's two things that killed the drive-ins.  First, the government had the law that you have to have car insurance to drive. And in the 1980s today's high prices started, and people lacked money after all the household bills.

      I hear that back in the 1970s drive-ins showed a lot of sex movies on the giant screen, and people outside the drive-ins could see it.  A lot of them were closed for that reason.

      Kids nowadays never hear about drive-in theaters.

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