On This Day: June 6th … Strange Holidays
National Yo-Yo Day
D-Day – WW II
Drive-In Movie Day
D-Day or the invasion of Normandy was the major battle that pretty much put an end to World War Two. Too bad we still have so many other wars going on.
National Yo-Yo Day
June 6th is the perfect day to get out your yo-yo’s and try your hand at The Sleeper, Walk the Dog, Shooting the Moon, Around the World or Hop the Fence.
The yo-yo is an object consisting of an axle connected to two disks and a length of string looped around the axle. It is played by holding the free end of the string, allowing gravity or the force of a throw to spin the yo-yo and unwind the string, then allowing the yo-yo to wind itself back again. The activity is called “yo-yoing.”
It is believed the yo-yo was first invented in ancient Greece. A Greek vase painting from 500 BC displays a boy playing with a yo-yo.
The yo-yo came to the United States through a young boy by the name of Pedro Flores. When he immigrated to the United States from the Philippines as a young boy, he recalled playing with a toy called a bandalore. The toy inspired Flores to create a business, and he called it the Flores Yo-yo. Between 1928 and 1932 the Yo-yo Manufacturing Company operated in Santa Barbara, California. Flores later sold his companies to Donald F. Duncan.
Donald F. Duncan, Sr. made the yo-yo popular in America when he manufactured the Duncan Yo-Yo in the early 1900s. He first trademarked the name “Yo-Yo” in 1932.
In 1999, the National Toy Hall of Fame elected the Duncan Yo-Yo to its halls at The Strong in Rochester, New York. The National Yo-Yo Museum is located in Chico, California.
The term yo-yoing is also often used to describe a person fluctuating between two difficult decisions.
Drive-In Movie Day
Drive-In Movie Day is the perfect day to honor a tradition that was extremely popular during the 1950s and 1960s. Drive-in movie theaters were viewed as romantic for couples and convenient for families, so they became a big hit.
However, they started to lose popularity when conventional movie theaters became popular throughout the 1970s.
In recent years, though, we have seen a bit of a resurgence in drive-in theaters, not only in the United States – where they are known to have been especially popular – but around the rest of the world too. The 2020 coronavirus pandemic can partly be attributed to this.
During this period, a lot of traditional movie theaters around the world were required to shut, and so drive-in theaters provided an acceptable way of getting entertainment while at a social distance. Drive-in theaters were not required to shut during this period, causing an increase in their popularity again.
This history of Drive-In Movie Day is literally the history of the Drive-In theater, and how it was born out of one son’s love for his mother. In 1933 Richard Hollingshead noticed a recurring problem with theaters, his mother simply was unable to find a comfortable way to sit in the seats provided by the theaters, but loved the cinema. He started trying to come up with a solution, but reinventing the theater seat just didn’t seem a viable solution.
They were already designed to provide the maximum amount of comfort possible while still packing in as many people as possible. With some time and a lot of experimentation, Richard slowly started finding the best combination of elements for an outdoor movie viewing experience.
This was more difficult than it sounded as he dealt with issues like protection from the rain, best placement of cars for maximum viewing ability, and how to get the sound to broadcast in a reliable and enjoyable way. Daunting though the task was, he wasn’t going to allow it to get in the way of his ambition, and in May of 1933 he received a patent and opened his first theater.
After the success of Park-In Theaters, Inc, the idea spread like wildfire, and drive-in theaters were soon appearing in cities all over the U.S. They reigned as king of the movie-going experience ever since, until things started to decline in recent years. Efforts are made to preserve them and keep them in operation, and there are over 300 still running all over the US.
There was a time where two to six people in a car could get into a drive-in for $6.50 a carload, and I'd love to see that come back into vogue. (Not counting the three hidden in the trunk of the car.)
People are enjoying a movie at the drive-in
when a loud booming voice comes over the intercom.
“To the man who’s taken my wife, I know you are here,
I’ll be coming round with my baseball bat until I find you.”
27 Cars left right then and there.
More Strange Holidays Coming!