At the Drive-In

The first time I went to a drive-in was when I was about 6 or 7.  I may have gone earlier than that but I don’t remember.  This time in particular I went with my sister and my cousin.  My cousin was visiting from North Carolina and she had just gotten her driver’s license.  We went to see The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.  I love that movie.  It is wonderful.  It’s a Don Knotts classic.  We went in my family’s Buick Convertable.  We had the top down throughout the entire movie, even on the way home.  I remember that because the night air was very cool and I snuggled down on the floor in the back seat so that the wind wouldn’t blow on me.  Fifty years later I still talk to my cousin about this.  She still can’t believe that my dad let her drive the car, with his kids.  It was a different time then.

By the time I went to high school a lot of the drive-ins had closed down.  The ones that were still active showed X-Rated movies.  So families didn’t go to drive-ins much anymore.  But, and I’m telling on myself and some good friends here, one night a group of my friends decided to sneak into the drive-in, a XXX drive-in.  We loaded up a friend’s family station wagon with lawn chairs, blankets, and coolers.  We were going on an adventure.  When we got to the drive-in the driver of our sin-wagon told everyone to get down in the back and cover ourselves up with the blankets.  When they pulled up to the ticket booth we paid for 2 people.  The ticket people didn’t bat an eye that they were underage.  I’m sure they had to know that we were all in the back but they didn’t bat an eye.  When we found the perfect spot to set up we all unloaded out of the station wagon.  We were so obviously out of our element.  Here we were, a group of Catholic all-girl school students, having a picnic at a XXX movie.  All I remember was that the movie was awful.  It was full of boobs.  We kept hollering that we wanted to see penises.  “We want to see penises!”  No one ever came over to us and told us to settle down or anything.  At one point we had to go to the bathroom so we had to go into the snack shop/gift shop.  It was a sex toy shop.  OMG!  We had never seen anything like that.  We didn’t know what we were looking at, just knew that we shouldn’t be looking at it.  Yeah, we probably shouldn’t have done any of that.  But boy what a memory that has been my entire life.

Drive-ins started making a comeback in the late 1970’s.  They all didn’t open back up but the ones that did started showing real movies again.  When I was a young newlywed we would go to the drive-in for everything except the movie, if you get my drift.  There was an air of getting caught but it lost its luster when nobody seemed to care.  We were married after all and really there were so many people doing the exact same thing it just wasn’t scandalous.  But it was fun while it lasted.

When I moved down to western Kentucky there was a drive-in that would run second run movies.  I liked second run movies.  These were the ones that survived but we’re not blockbusters.  We would go to the drive-in once again with coolers and blankets and lawn chairs.  Everyone else did too.  We would tailgate before and during the first movie.  We made sure to bring the bug spray because there were times that the mosquitos would haul you off.  One time in particular, we took Jimmy’s sister, Linda Mae, with us.  She hadn’t been to a movie in years.  She preferred to sit on the couch and watch movies on dvd.  But she went and we had the best time.  We grilled burgers and went all out.  That’s another one of those memories of a lifetime.

Today we go to the drive-in from time to time.  We have to drive about 30 minutes to this overly popular drive-in.  They show two movies a night.  The first movie is always a kid movie, then the second is an adventure movie.  Honestly, bad movies are always so good at the drive-in.  Remember The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp?  I went back a second time to see that one at the drive-in.  But this place has got a snack bar that won’t quit.  People come just to buy hamburgers.  They don’t even want to watch the movie.  But you had better get there early if you want to have one of those great burgers.  There are times someone is going to watch the first movie standing in line to get a burger.  But it’s worth it, I promise you.  And if a family gets there early there are swings and slides, just like they had when we went to see The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.  The kids say they want to watch the movie but they really came to play.

The best part of the drive-in?  Falling asleep, of course.  Whether it’s your 6 year old or your grandpa falling asleep during the movie, that means that somebody had a great time.  I know I always do.