The past is never dead, it is not even past.

-- William Faulkner

Sunday's column about old drive-in movie theaters shows that they might be gone, but people still remember them fondly.

Jon Willcox , of Harlem, put it this way: "Although I am telling my age, I used to frequent the places you ask about," he writes. "The Forest Hills Drive-in was on Wrightsboro Road near North Leg. The Skyview was on Olive Road between Skyview Drive and Milledgeville Road where there is now a large church and a housing complex."

Carleton Duvall remembers something else.

"The admission was based on the number of people in a car," he recalls.

"I remember as a teenager, going with a carload. Right before we got there we would load the trunk with as many as we could, drive in, pay for the ones in the passenger seats, go in and open the trunk. It worked every time."

Edna Mae Tinsley , of North Augusta, wasn't so lucky.

"I remember going to the Skyview once after I could drive -- I had a carload of cousins visiting from Spartanburg, and we wanted to see if we could sneak a few of them in without paying," she writes.

"Two of my cousins jumped into the trunk, and I drove to the ticket booth. Just as I was paying the clerk, my 3-year-old cousin pointed to the rear of the car and cried, 'Let my sister out!'

"The clerk must have heard her, because the manager of the drive-in was by my car before I could let my cousins out of the trunk. We were kicked out of the drive-in, and my life of crime ended there."

Pat Glover , of Evans, remembers The Hilltop was "in North Augusta ... on the hill where the DSS offices are now.

"There was also the Weis drive-in out on Highway 25, the only one to have air conditioners/heaters to hook to your car -- talk about steaming up the windows ... It's a shame they've gone away."

Well, not all of them. Leon Sanders, of Aiken, points out that the "Big Mo" drive-in is still operating out near Batesburg-Monetta.

Jean Barney liked what I said about drive-ins and families. "It would be wonderful if families did more together -- like maybe eat dinner together!" she wrote.

Thanks, Jean, and thanks to the dozens of others who wrote or called to talk about Augusta's old drive-ins.

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BLOG ALERT: If you want to read about the wildest funeral you could imagine, check out my Our Town blog on the augustachronicle.com Web site.

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TODAY'S JOKE: Here's one from Charlie Williams .

It seems a social worker from a big city in Massachusetts recently transferred to the mountains of Kentucky and was on the first tour of her new territory when she came upon the tiniest cabin she had ever seen in her life.

Intrigued, she went up and knocked on the door. "Anybody home?" she asked.

"Yep," came a kid's voice through the door.

"Is your father there?" asked the social worker.

"Nope, he left afore Ma came in," said the kid.

"Well, is your mother there?" persisted the social worker.

"Nope, she left just afore I got here," said the kid.

"But," protested the social worker, "are you never together as a family?"

"Sure, but not here," said the kid through the door. "This is our outhouse."

Reach Bill Kirby at (706) 823-3344 or bill.kirby@augustachronicle.com.