At $7 per adult for a double-feature, a drive-in movie is a good deal. But what if it was a dollar a car? Think of how cheap the night would be if you could cram, say, 36 people into one car?
In September 1949, the Nu-Way Drive-In Theatre in Hummels Wharf (where Wal-Mart is currently located) offered family night for a dollar a car, stating in their newspaper advertisement, “A Free Gift will be awarded to the driver of the car with the most occupants.” That was too much of a challenge for an old trickster like Walter C. Good of Island Park, who showed up with 35 passengers in his car.
“Oh, we were four deep,” said Walter C.’s brother, Glenn Good, 85, of Northumberland. “They took the seats out and we piled in back there, the little ones up on the ledge in the back.” Walter C. Good’s son, also named Walter, was 4 years old at the time. The Shamokin resident remembers being on the ledge with his 3-year-old cousin, Glenda (Good) Strouse, of Point Township, “and one or two others.” People sat on laps, four or five deep, the men recalled. Some kids were even stuffed in the open trunk.
“When they took the seats out in the back, I was at the bottom because I was big,” Glenn laughed. “I was 25 then.”
Family members parked their cars four or five blocks away from the drive-in, then piled into Walter C. Good’s car for a slow, lumbering ride.
“The fenders went down and touched the wheels, so we couldn’t drive far,” Walter recalled. “I don’t think it was legal at all.” “We were all a lot thinner and littler, too,” said Betty Good, Glenn’s wife, who was 22 at the time, adding, “There were cars that came in with 14 or 18 people. They thought sure they’d win.”
“When my dad drove in, I remember him telling them how many people there were in the car, and they didn’t believe him. They made everyone get out, and they took the picture,” Walter said. “And then they made everyone get back in and take another picture.”
Photos of the group were published on page 12 of the Sunbury Daily Item on Sept. 24, 1949.
“Any of those heads you see in the picture, they weren’t ours,” Betty said. “We were on the floor.”
And was the drive-in proprietor angry?
“Oh, no. He was kind of surprised, I think,” Betty said. “In awe.”
“He looked on it as advertisement,” Glenn added.
Not surprisingly, Walter C. Good was the lucky winner of the Free Gift: a table lamp.
“It was beautiful,” Betty said. “It was light green porcelain with a Colonial picture (of a man and a woman) on it. It had gold, fancy handles on the sides of the lamp.”
“I think it had crystals hanging from the shade,” Walter mused.
To watch the movie, the group spread out on blankets on the grass, which disappointed Walter, who thought they’d all watch from the car. And though none of them remembers the flick, the Sunbury Daily Item at the time advertised a scary-looking movie titled “The Hunted.”
“That was an unusual movie for family night,” Glenn commented.
Regardless of the film, when Walter C. Good crammed 36 people (and one of them was pregnant at the time) into his car, he created a fun night that the family has laughed over for 60 years.
“Dad was a jokester,” Walter said.
“He was a kidder,” Glenn agreed. “I don’t remember that he ever had a mean word for anyone.”
-- Cindy O. Herman lives in Snyder County. Send e-mail comments to her at Cindyherman1@yahoo.com.
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Cindy O. Herman/For The Daily Item
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