Movies, Food, and Sex Education

Well, summer is almost upon us again, so what does that mean? Think of it, my friends. Warm sunny days spent at the beach, a swimming pool, hiking in the woods, taking a drive up the coast with the top down, or maybe even a night at the drive-in movie.

The what? Sadly, a large part of today's youth is unfamiliar with the concept of the drive-in movie theater, in spite of the fact that there are still some 500 of them out there, 31 in Ohio alone, the most in any state. For those of you joining us late, I will clue you in on the wickedly fun pastime that was and still is the drive-in movie.

The first drive-in was started at his home by Richard M. Hollingshead of Camden, New Jersey, who was granted a patent for his idea in May of 1933 and put on the first such show Tuesday, June 6, 1933, playing the film "Wife Beware" using a projector mounted on the hood of his car that sent the movie to a large sheet attached to two trees.

The idea caught on, and by January of 1942, there were 95 drive-in theaters spread out in 27 states, and Ohio led the way with 11 of the movie places. World War II put a damper on things because of gas and rubber rationing, so people, knowing that tires were hard to come by and gas was in short supply, avoided going anywhere that wasn't absolutely necessary.

After the war, things picked up very nicely, thank you, and the expansion of cities included a rise in the number of drive-in theaters, peaking in 1958 when 4,060 of the businesses were in operation. At the height of their glory, there were fifteen theaters in America with accommodations for small planes. Theater owners even provided a towing service to get the planes back to the adjoining landing field after the show.