Sunday, July 18, 2010

Saturday Night at the Drive-In (Take Two)



My wife and I got out of the house on Saturday, with no agenda in mind and nowhere in particular to go. Around sunset, we ended up along the New York-New Jersey border near the Jersey ski resorts. During our hunt for a decent Italian joint, we saw a long line of cars pulling into a drive-in movie theater. Well, we just had to go.

Drive-ins are something of an endangered species. Amy and I both grew up going to drive-ins, so we're sentimental about them. My wife remembered when her mother and a family friend took all the kids to one in their pajamas. I couldn't remember the previous time I went to a drive-in, but I saw one of the two scariest movies in my life -- The H-Man, a Japanese sci-fi film -- at an upstate New York drive-in when I was in elementary school.

Saturday's drive-in attracted a crowd that arrived mostly in SUVs and pick-up trucks. Don't get the wrong idea: we drive a crossover vehicle. This was one relaxed crowd, complete with its own lawn chairs or improvised car seating. We could only get into the "family" movie, so we weren't surrounded by horny or anxious date night couples. That also meant we were hardly in a position to act on our desires once darkness arrived.

In a way, none of that mattered. We were really intrigued by watching a movie on a screen under the stars. Our bonus for the evening was that, thanks to parking on an embankment, we could see all three movies being shown. This drive-in theater, as with its multiplex relatives, had to give in to the times and divide its once grand space into three smaller areas. Each screen at the drive-in showed a different movie. Now that was interesting.

But we did miss the oversized metal speakers for the soundtrack that one attached to a car door. The 21st Century drive-in pumps sound through the FM bands. That's a bit of a letdown. However, seeing the movies on larger-than-life screens -- even bad movies -- was worth it. Of course, if we hadn't been surrounded by families, we might not have watched the movies at all.

I wonder how many parents have told their kids they were conceived at a drive-in?

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