Saturday, June 14, 2014

THE DRIVE-IN THEATER


How about a trip down Memory Lane? Actually a stop along the way down Memory Lane is what I’m talking about.

If you are old enough you can remember the Friday or Saturday nights at the local Drive-In. It was a special time and just about everyone went to one every so often. It took you out of the routine of TV and the movie house into the night, free and fresh as the air!

Usually if you went with your family, you went right before sunset so you could get the ideal spot, the little kids in their pajamas in the back seat and close to the refreshment stand. You were bombarded with great advertising for such great treats as hot dogs, popcorn and candy, with a soda standing guard over all the stuff Dad carried back to the car in that little grey box. The red and white stripe boxes of French fries seemed to whet the appetite and you had to have something.

As you sat you watched the other families come and settle in and waited for the sun to set, it seemed the sun never set waiting, and so usually a fight broke out in the back seat until the movie began.

Then one day you went to the drive-in with your friends. Usually there were 6, four paid and two were concealed usually under a blanket, making the experience that much more fun. Then I learned if I just took a date by myself, I had to go back to see the movie again! (Hey, don’t judge, I was young)

Usually there was always some schmuck who pulled up in a van to block your view. This moron also had to step on his brake during the show, so you would put on your high beams and shine into his rearview mirror, hoping to blind the numbskull and send him home.

But the best part was yet to come! No, not the movie, but leaving the parking lot, the mad scramble just as the credits started to roll, everyone jockeying to position to beat the crowd and make the mad exodus to the main road.

And so another part of my youth is forever gone, no longer to be lived, as the world peers into their smart phones and close off another part of being human.

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