NO KIDDING...! IT'S BACK TO THE FIFTIES AND DRIVE-IN MOVIES

Fonzie, Ferris Bueller, Grease, American Pie! Hollywood images that ignite giddy recollections of what we are told in convenient retrospect were America's 'happy days.' Trouble is I was there and, given our daily duck-and-cover threat our Cold War could turn atomic hot any minute, they weren't all that happy.

However, through the gauze of time, they do look simpler. And much of their simplicity can be found in the simple fare on our drive-in movie screens. More than 5000 of them in the country back then. A little sub-culture all its own featuring over-sexed teens looking for their own dark place, and over-populated families who found it easier to gather the kids in cars rather than balconies.

Here's the point.

Right now there's a resurgence of these drive-ins, replete with the individual car speakers and walk-to popcorn stands. You say you hadn't noticed...? Well, pretty soon you will because the media loves to talk about the media. In this case, a 50-years-later revival.

That's the point. Revival. Life is lived in cycles. Be it the economy's booms-and-busts or the surprise discovery stay-at-home-moms can be a good thing or the hemlines, hats, hairdos, shoes, and elections. Everything, I mean everything, eventually comes back.

Like cliches? Researchers usually dismiss them, but here's one you can take to the bank: "The more things change the more they're the same!" This slightly battered species of ours really has only so many roads through time it can take. And while we often take them boldly, almost as often they end up ending pretty close to where we started.

What's fun about this is how each time our descendants think its the first time. Drive-in movie anyone.