It’s Day 349 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. On a snowy mid-December day, it took only about an hour to drive from the Aut-O-Rama Twin Drive In in North Ridgeville OH, passing through the south side of the Cleveland metro area, to the Mayfield Road Drive-In Theatre, a few miles south of Chardon OH.

The folks who talk about the Mayfield Road these days all say that it opened in 1945, but I haven’t heard anyone mention that it opened as the Hazelwood Drive-In. I know that the Hazelwood was around by 1950 or so, but I can’t find any other information that it existed in the 1940s, especially from the drive-in lists published at the time. Just call me a skeptic.

What the old reference books tell me is that by 1952, the Hazelwood was owned by R.H. Manley and Herbert H. Horstemeier, a big name in regional theaters. One V.A. Nelson was listed as owner in the late 1950s, followed by Carl Brinkman in the 1960s. Except for Horstemeier, I can’t find any other info about any of these guys.

The drive-in’s name had changed to the Mayfield Road by 1972, when it and manager Peter Maisano were unsuccessfully sued by a patron. (It sits on Ohio Route 322, also known as Mayfield Road, but I don’t know why its name changed.) By 1980, my old books list the owner as Maisano, and the Geauga County Maple Leaf wrote recently that the Maisano family had owned the drive-in up to 1993.

Current owner John Knepp bought the Mayfield Road in 1993. That year, a wind storm blew down the original screen. I couldn’t tell whether that was before or after the sale. The drive-in replaced the screen of course, and 20 years later quietly switched to digital projection.

Earlier this year when Disney demanded higher fees and other concessions from drive-ins that wanted to show Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Knepp joined a loose coalition of regional theaters that refused to show it. The embedded video of the day is from WKYC, Cleveland’s News Leader, covering that announcement while gathering some lovely images of the place.

The drive-in closed for the season in October, and I’m glad it’s in such great shape to return next spring.

Miles Today / Total: 47 / 39107 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 200

Nearby Restaurant: It looks like somebody’s house on the corner, except the busy parking lot betrays that something good is being served at Maple City Taps & Eatery. It’s like a neighborhood bar with seemingly every kind of food that goes well with beer. I started with a cup of homemade chili to literally warm up, then moved on to a ribs and chicken barbecue combo. With sports playing on the TVs, I could have stayed here all day.

Where I Virtually Stayed: Google told me that there aren’t any hotels in Chardon, and that the closest to the drive-in is the Comfort Inn 11 miles north in Painesville. On this snowy day, I didn’t want to drive any more than necessary. Cookies and coffee were waiting at check-in. My nicely refurbished room had all the modern amenities, and breakfast included some protein along with the classic Comfort waffles. If only I had some Geauga County maple syrup to go with them.

Only in Chardon: Every spring, Chardon hosts the Geauga County Maple Festival. The event was founded in 1926 in an attempt to market Ohio syrup in competition with Vermont syrup. The 2017 edition included one- and five-mile sap runs, the crowning of the festival king and queen, and plenty of pancakes.

Next stop: Midway Twin Drive In Theater, Ravenna OH.

It’s Day 348 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. On a cold, breezy mid-December day, it took less than an hour to drive from the Blue Sky Drive In Theater in Wadsworth OH to the Aut-O-Rama Twin Drive In in North Ridgeville OH.

The Aut-O-Rama’s history is a quiet one. It opened in 1965 (Cinema Treasures says July 2 that year) and has stayed in the same family ever since. “We actually opened this after the big wave of drive-in theaters in the 1950s,” current owner Deb Sherman told the Cleveland Scene earlier this year. “So ours looks a little different. We learned from the others what worked and what didn’t.”

One big innovation was the addition of a second screen in 1972, making the drive-in the Cleveland area’s first twin. “We were the first one in the area to do that,” she told The Morning Journal in 2013. “That enabled us to show a variety of movies and avoid being stuck with a dog of a movie.”

Back to that line of ownership – the recent newspaper stories about the Aut-O-Rama are short on first names. Deb Sherman’s husband passed away in 1993, and it was his father who started the drive-in, but what was his first name? The drive-in lists of the International Motion Picture Almanac tell me only that it started with G.

The Aut-O-Rama sits on a perfect triangle of land to help maintain its longevity. Active train tracks form its southern border, and the Ohio Turnpike passes to the northeast. Only one street leads to the entrance, and that’s a short distance from another interstate highway. That visibility and traffic helped it keep going through the lean 1980s. “That was a really rough decade for us and that’s when most of the drive-ins around here closed,” Deb said.

These days things are going great for the Aut-O-Rama. With the digital projectors it installed in 2013, it runs Retro Tuesday night showings of older movies. “I’m looking at ‘Easy Rider’ and a bunch of other films,” she said. “Maybe ‘Goonies,’ since people are always asking for us to show it again.”

The embedded YouTube video of the day is a superb profile of the Aut-O-Rama as it looked in 2015. It features Deb’s son Tim Sherman, and it’s got great shots of everything except the drive-in’s interesting marquee with comedy/tragedy masks. You can see a photo of that here.

The drive-in closed for the season in October, and I’m glad it’s in such great shape to return next spring.

Miles Today / Total: 39 / 39060 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 200

Nearby Restaurant: For some homestyle cooking not too far away, I stopped in at the Gourmé Family Restaurant just across the turnpike from the Aut-O-Rama. I had something I rarely get at home – beef barley soup, which I love but the wife despises for no good reason. I had it with pancakes on the side, because I also love breakfast all day. It was all great warmup food at a good price.

Where I Virtually Stayed: There was a Hampton Inn just five miles away in Elyria, so that’s where I went. I was going through withdrawal because of two many nights away from the reassuring, high-quality sameness that Hampton provides so well. There were cookies and coffee waiting at check-in. My room had the full set of modern amenities. Breakfast was the usual Hampton standard. Now I can try mom and pop motels again if I need to for a couple of days

Only in North Ridgeville: Just north of North Ridgeville is Avon OH, the self-proclaimed Duct Tape Capital of the World. (It’s where the Duck Tape brand of the stuff is made.) According to The Municipal, the town’s annual Heritage Duck Tape Festival include life-size duct tape sculptures; an arts and crafts tent; a fashion show; and the crowning of “Duck Tape Dad of the Year.” Plus the first 500 tourists each day receive a free roll of Duck Tape.

Next stop: Mayfield Road Drive-In Theatre, Chardon OH.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3Se-H2RqKY

It’s Day 347 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. Although they’re technically in different cities, it took me less than 15 minutes to drive from the Magic City Drive In, southwest of Barberton OH to the Blue Sky Drive In Theater in Wadsworth.

According to its About Us page, “The Blue Sky was built and opened by Dale Morrison in 1947. He operated it for five years and to the best of my understanding sold it to Selected Theaters who operated it until Gary Grieve purchased it in 1980. The original screen was wood. The street side had twinkling stars that folks drove by just to see. The large speakers on the sides of the screen could be heard all the way to Doylestown on a clear night.”

Most of those details match the newspaper records and what Cinema Treasures said about it. Morrison, a farmer who later (or always?) lived next door to the Blue Sky, opened it on July 4, 1947. Reportedly, the drive-in had been part of his fruit orchard, and his farm was large enough that an account of an elementary school field trip decades later still called it the “Dale Morrison farm” even though it was then owned by someone else.

In April 1950, the Blue Sky Drive-In opened the season with new RCA in-car speakers, so those loudspeakers only lasted the first three years. Earl Seitz bought it in January 1952. A newspaper report that year said, “The nine-acre lot is large enough for 430 cars and provides a large picnic area for those who care to take their supper out.”

There was a minor flap in May 1955 when the Blue Sky said it would show French Follies. Parts of the community rose up against such a risque feature, and the drive-in backed down, swapping in conventional films at the last minute.

Cinema Treasures says that Seitz sold the Blue Sky to Sam and Jay Schultz in January 1956, but a 1961 newspaper article about a different theater mentioned that Seitz still owned the Blue Sky.

Gary Grieve leased the drive-in in 1980 and purchased it in 1984. In 1997, he told The Akron Beacon Journal that the folks who frequented nearby drive-ins that had closed were looking to go elsewhere. “I think all four of them (the surviving drive-ins) have benefited from the demise of the others,” he said.

Grieve was still the owner in 2013 when Blue Sky general manager Jeff Davis asked fans to vote in Honda’s Project Drive-In, but I guess the drive-in found a new digital projector elsewhere because it’s still going strong.

The embedded YouTube video of the day is another from Outdoor Moovies, shot in 2005 and uploaded in 2009.

The drive-in closed for the season in October, and I’m glad it’s in good shape to return next spring.

Miles Today / Total: 6 / 39021 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 200

Nearby Restaurant: On another snowy day when the drive-in is closed (of course), I again went looking for comfort food. I found it at the Valley Cafe, where I enjoyed their signature dish of shrimp and crispy grit cakes. That plus plenty of coffee warmed my insides against the wintry assault outside.

Where I Virtually Stayed: Since the closest hotels to my drive-in of the night before were right here in Wadsworth, I had the pleasure of settling in to the same room for two nights, a particularly strong benefit on a snow day. The Comfort Inn continued to work out fine. There’s a restaurant and lounge adjacent to the hotel. My room had the full set of modern amenities. Breakfast had hot food along with the continental favorites. I just needed to scrape off the windshield to start another trek.

Only in Wadsworth: Every year, Wadsworth holds a five-day Blue Tip Festival, which starts with a parade and the lighting of a 20-foot blue tip match. The festival then offers attendants their choice of amusement rides, festival foods, midway games, contests, and other entertainment. The festival is named after the historic strike-anywhere blue tip matches which were once manufactured in Wadsworth.

Next stop: Aut-O-Rama Twin Drive In, North Ridgeville OH.