THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 4, 1995 TAG: 9512020071
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
REMEMBER DRIVE-in theaters? We called them passion pits.
Today, when you're in the mood for a movie, you amble down to Blockbuster. Or head for the shoeboxes with seats at the cineplex.
In another time, you jumped into the car to see stars under the stars at the drive-in.
The Norfolk Drive-In advertised two big features every night.
WHRO tonight at 8 revives the era of the drive-in theaters in Southside Hampton Roads and on the Peninsula in ``Gone, But Not Forgotten Part 2: When Anything Was Possible.''
The theme here is people in this area on the move in the 1950s and 1960s - people eating and watching movies in their cars, traveling by rail aboard Norfolk & Western's swift Powhatan Arrow from magnificent Union Station in downtown Norfolk, steaming to Baltimore on ships as white as ghosts on the Old Bay Line, sailing the Atlantic in the prettiest ship ever built, the superliner United States.
The drive-in theaters are gone but not forgotten. Also gone, and absolutely forgotten, are the drive-in church services.
Producer Bill Uher of WHRO reminds us that they were here in the 1960s with a snapshot of the Rev. Richard D. Woodward's 8:30 a.m. services at the Virginia Beach Drive-In on Laskin Road.
Passion pits on Saturday night, rolling pews on Sunday morning.
While movies on wheels disappeared as developers gobbled up the land on which the drive-ins were located, meals on wheels made it to the 1990s. Doumar's Cones and Barbecues on Monticello Avenue in Norfolk was around in 1934, and it is still in business, dishing out $1.40 barbecues.
Al Doumar is still there. So are the curb girls.
When the guys with greasy hair and cigarette packs rolled up into the sleeves of their T-shirts were hanging out at drive-in restaurants in the 1950s and 1960s, their mission was twofold, said Doumar.
``You were there to show off your car and your date.''
And to eat.
One hamburger - hold the onions - fries and a vanilla shake, please.
Did you see ``Bye Bye Birdie'' on ABC the other night? It was set in the time of the drive-in theater, the time of restaurants with curb girls.
Believe it or not, there was a time when gas stations were happy to fill it up for you at no extra charge. Perhaps Uher will deal with that in ``Gone But Not Forgotten 3.''
When WHRO launched ``Gone, But Not Forgotten'' last year, the stroll down memory lane helped raise money to buy PBS programming. It's pledge time again at Channel 15.
So, bring on son of ``Gone, But Not Forgotten.''
Return to George Bacalis' hot dog stand in downtown Norfolk. Hear Frank Guida explain how the Norfolk sound sent rock 'n' roll on its way. And see the United States, built with great craftsmanship in Newport News, in its greatest moment dashing across the Atlantic.
And see it at its worst - rusting away at a Norfolk pier.
Andy Roberts, the retired weather guy from WTKR, returns as narrator. As with the first ``Gone, But Not Forgotten,'' the sequel needs something more than Roberts' voice to pull it all together.
Why wasn't he asked to appear on camera at the places he refers to in the script? It would have been great to see Roberts buying a cone at Doumar's or former band singer Roberts talking 1950s' music with Guida.
Uher says his aim was to slow down the past a little, to catch up with it, to revel in it for an hour. ``As our lives seem to pick up speed, the past also seems to fade a little faster,'' he said. David Ferraro is executive producer, Betty Lusa associate producer.
``Gone But Not Forgotten 2: When Anything Was Possible'' airs again Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m. Once upon a time, people who lived here took a boat to Baltimore. Now we drive up there on dangerous, congested I-95.
The Old Bay Line sounds like the way to go. ILLUSTRATION: File photo
The Shore Drive-In movie theater in Virginia Beach was converted to
a flea market in its final days.
by CNB