For suburban teenagers in western New York, drive-in movie theatres were a place to get some privacy and hang out with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Ok, truth: from the number of steamed-up car windows in drive-in parking lots every night, it was more “make out” than “hang out.” Did anyone actually see the movie?

Today’s latchkey kids get plenty of privacy, but in our world, where moms stayed home and only dads went to work, one parent was always around. Drive-ins afforded the only privacy some kids had.

When I heard a drive-in was still operating nearby, I couldn’t help but think back to those days. I can still see the big screen at the end of a big, flat parking lot, empty except for a concessions stand at the back end. We’d have to navigate an obstacle course of metal speakers on stands that dotted the parking lot, dodging them carefully as we drove those big, unwieldy 1960s cars around to find just the right parking spot.

Remember the tinny-sounding, static filled speakers we’d hang in our car windows? They were so bad it was nearly impossible to hear the movie soundtrack. But then again, few of us actually saw the movie.

When did you last go to a drive-in? and what do you remember?