🎥 🍿 🍫 Let’s All Go to the Lobby…

     I looked out my front window this evening and saw my neighbors outside enjoying the cooler temps of the day. Many were walking dogs. The earlier rain dropped the temperature to almost perfect for an early summer evening. A lot of people had on shorts, sleeveless tops and t-shirts. I don’t remember people walking their dogs when I was a little kid. They just let their pets out and called them back in after their potty breaks. Too many people I saw today had their heads bent to their cell screens, missing all the beauty.

     As a teen, summer evenings meant driving around with my friends. If it was very hot, we might have gone to a movie theater for a mindless summer comedy or a weird sci-fi or a tense spy thriller. (My Dad took me to my first James Bond movie as we both loved to read the books. Really fun!) As a teen, going to a drive-in movie theater was a date activity. But when I was a child, the drive-in was a family activity. I don’t think kids today get to have the Real drive-in theater experience. I think most are closed now which is too bad. Drive-ins were fun!

     It was special to go to the drive-in movies. First of all, it meant I got to stay up after bedtime (do kids even have bedtimes anymore?). Of course, I usually only lasted about half an hour after dark. I got to wear my Pjs, easier than changing into pjs when we got home. The family car, a station wagon, became my bed away from my bed. My Dad would fold the seats down so the back was a flat surface up to the front seat where my parents sat. Then we put multiple blankets down to make it soft and comfortable, like a door to door bed. I brought  my pillow and had a blanket to pull up if it got too cool. It was kind of  like camping in the car.

     So after dinner we’d drive to the drive-in, buy our tickets and begin the hunt for the best viewing spot. For those who don’t know, drive-ins have rows and rows of little hills so you can pull up, park and your view is slanted up so you can see the gigantic screen. Each little “hill” has a speaker pole. Once you pick your row and position in that row, you pull the speaker into the car. It was a square box with a part to latch over your car window then the window was rolled back up so the speaker hung inside the car. Maybe not so great for the person who had the speaker right next to their ear. 🥴

     Then it was just a matter of waiting for it to get dark enough for the movie to start. If the movie didn’t start when people thought it should, horns would honk or people would turn their headlights on the screen. However there was always time for one last trip (before the movie actually started) to the concession stand with that wonderful jingle enticing you to ice cream bars, popsicles, popcorn, sodas, even, later on, hotdogs from one of those rolling bar cooker thing-ys. No nachos, no burgers but lots and lots of candy: Milk Duds, Junior Mints, Slo-pokes, Sugar Daddy’s, Good ‘n Plenty, Dots, well, fill in your favorite. I think we probably took our own popcorn and any drinks meant a long walk to the restroom, in the dark, so no drinks.

     As the movie theme music would begin, I remember being very excited. But then I’d get tired of trying to see, maybe bored with the movie, so I’d lay down and be asleep about 15 to 30 minutes in. I honestly don’t think I ever saw one complete movie. But it was all right because the experience was amazing for a little kid. It was exciting. It was special. It was a wonderful treat. I feel bad for kids today who don’t get to experience the joy of seeing a movie at a drive-in. Doing something out of the ordinary, staying up later than they usually do and going somewhere, in public, in your Pjs. Does it get any better? You can get an idea of (kind of) what it was like by watching movies that take place in the 1950s-60s; Grease, American Graffiti, even the comedy, Blazing Saddles. Just remember, they’re just movies. Nothing can match the actual experience. A warm summer night, a station wagon with the backseats folded down and Pjs.