“Let’s head out for the Drive-in tonight”, was what a lot of people would say back in the day. Now this is not to be confused with a drive through at a fast food restaurant in today’s world, don’t you know.

Now when was the last time any of you have watched a movie at a movie theater or Drive-in? I dare say I can’t recollect the last time I have been in a movie theater lately. For one reason today there are no movie theaters in Richmond Co. and another is the price to watch a movie has skyrocketed.

Back in the day won’t that way, no sir-ree. In Richmond Co. alone there were at least three Drive-in theaters and four walk-ins operating at the same time. This is not to mention theaters in Scotland, Anson, Montgomery, Stanly Counties and others all over the Southeast. You can bet your bottom dollar that you didn’t have to take out a loan just to be able to take your family to see a movie either.

In the fifties, just in downtown Rockingham, why there were three walk-in Movie Houses within a stone’s throw of each other. There was the Richmond, the Strand and the Little Theater; and also one in Hamlet and East Rockingham. For Drive-in theaters there was the Skyview, which was located about where Ollie’s is today. Then there was one on Airport Rd. close to where Maness Tire Service is today and yet a third off Battley Dairy Rd in Hamlet and maybe some more this feeble mind can’t remember.

Friday nights and all day Sat. seemed to be when most people took in a movie. If’n a child could get hold of a quarter it would get him in to see an evening matinee at the movies. By some chance the child could get a whole dollar they could watch movies in Rockingham at all three theaters plus have some extra money for popcorn and a drink the same day.

As it is today, some families would be running low on cash but they still wanted their families to be able to watch a good movie. “Where there is a will there’s a way” is an old time saying that still true today. Why back in the day people would just load all the kids in the trunks of their old cars and head on out to the local Drive-ins. To tell you the truth it was a sight to be sitting in your car with one of them aluminum speakers attached to the driver’s window watching them kids all pile out of their parent’s car trunks. I’ll bet I’ve seen as many as eight or ten kids come piling out of their trunks and sit in front of their car to watch the movie.

The Drive-in management got wind of people bringing other people in their trunks and not paying to get in. About time for the movie to start the manager or someone with the Drive-in would slowly walk through the rows of cars with a dim flashlight trying to spot the non-payers. Like I just said “where there is a will there is a way.” Why them movie going folks would cut a plug out of their backseats so the kids or whoever could crawl from the trunk of their car into whatever was left of the back seats so they wouldn’t be seen and to keep from paying to watch the movie.

Westerns were a big hit back in the day. Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and Gene Autry movies were my favorites. Movies like Gone with the Wind and The Ten Commandants left a never ending picture in my mind. And who didn’t shed a tear when Ol’ Yellar died. Also I remember the old movie of Bonnie and

Clyde and how the promoters of the movie parked the very car that Bonnie and Clyde were killed in by the front of the Richmond Theater. Why I bet I counted every bullet hole in it.

Before the Drive-ins started to play out they were showing a lot of girlie and horror movies. Why I remember just before I got my driving license, an older friend who already had his own car, asked me to go to the Drive-in with him one night. Well not getting out much back then I decided to take him up on the invite. I didn’t even ask him what was playing. Big mistake!!! We rolled into the Drive-in and I looked up on the billboard and the movie Blood Feast was playing. Until this day I don’t like this kind of movie. Well we paid the admittance fee and drove on in. Another mistake!!! Won’t long the movie started and as it went along it got more gory and gory. Why them actors was pulling people’s hearts out and eating them, don’t you know. Well I’ve always had a weak stomach and I had seen all of this here movie I could stand. I told my friend: “Let’s go. I’m getting sicker by the minute.” You know he wouldn’t leave!!!, no-sir-re, so I walked out to the concession stand and called me a taxi to take me home. That was my first and last ride in a taxi and also the last time this Ol’ Boy has been to a movie without knowing the name of it, and a little about it don’t you know.

J.A. Bolton is a member of the N.C. Storytelling Guild, Richmond and Anson Co. Writer’s Club and the Story Spinners in Laurinburg.