Drive-Ins

From the day I was born, I went to drive-in movies.  Mom and Dad loved them.  We would take a blanket and bug spray and a pillow for me plus a few favorite toys.  It was a ritual when I was young.  We'd go out to eat someplace (no Mc Donald's back then)-- the Spaghetti Shoppe maybe, or Jimmy's Dinor.  We'd go to the drive-in at Lawrence Park, or the Lakeview.  Dad always bought a big popcorn.  He would sing army songs and some others that drove my very young mind bonkers.

"one night I saw upon a stair a little man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today.  Oh, how I wish he'd go away!"

Mom liked "Detour" and would belt it out embarrassingly loud.  Neither of them had a singing voice, but we had fun.  Of all the wonderful qualities I could have inherited, I inherited their voices.

Later on, it was Aunt Marjie and Uncle Don who would tote me along to the drive-in, usually accompanied by a ride around the beach to look for deer and a stop at  Baskin and Robbins 33 Flavors.   They were always afraid we would starve or something, because they brought coolers of pop, sandwiches , chips and fruit. And, of course, bug spray and a blanket.  When my children were small, they came, too, crowded in Uncle Don's Plymouth Fury with the usual snacks.

 Back then, the cars were rarely air conditioned, and those suckers got HOT. Add to that the speakers which fit over the car window that you couldn't close.  The mosquitoes smelled blood and  sweat, OK, and we were molested the entire movie.  Someday I will tell you about my friend Jane driving off with the speaker still attached...yes, she still has the speaker.

I stopped watching movies at the drive-ins when I was about sixteen.  I didn't say we stopped GOING to drive-ins, just that the movies were no longer as interesting as the other forms of...entertainment. (It was years later that I finally saw the ending of  "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Graduate".)    I do remember seeing "Night of the Living Dead" with cousin Frank and his girl Winnie, and me and future hubby in the back seat.  Came intermission, and Hubby-to-be walked Winnie to the rest rooms. That movie gave me the creepies (still does).  Frank, ever the pain in the butt comedian, slid his hand over the back seat, complete with sound effects, grabbing my hair with a "MOOOOHAHAHAHA" and bursting into peals of laughter when I hit him over the head with my empty pop cup and screamed bloody murder.

There were lots of other movies, though I couldn't tell you the names.  I knew enough about them to relate the plot to my not-so-dumb parents the next day. 

Some of the kids, too poor or too cheap to pay for tickets would hide in the trunk of their daddy's Chevy, or cover with blankets in the station wagon.  We'd congregate at the snack bar, or huddle in the dark shadows.  Running across the front of the snack bar meant your silhouette would show up on the big cement-block screen---Oh, the things we saw!  We played like children at the playground, scarfed down a gallon of REAL soda--no diet stuff--and a bucket of popcorn with REAL butter. We steamed the windows, only occasionally coming up for air.  Drive-ins weren't only made for watching movies.  The back rows were made for romance and adventure.

Sometimes I miss the drive-in movies.  After being married for forty years, and with bucket seats and center consoles (unheard of in the '60's), they don't hold the same magic.  Friends no longer need to hide in trunks.  The drive-ins on Iroquois Avenue are gone anyway, as is the Peninsula Drive-in.  A few still remain.  Today, the movies come with the comfort of my LaZ Boy, a glass of wine and no mosquitoes.

At sixty, if I am going to PAY for a movie, I am going to WATCH it, or at least TiVo it for later.

Remember when Life, weekends and relationships were fun?  Yes, my friend, I do.