The Drive-in isn't dead...

I just read this great column on Brietbart.com where the auther relives his times at the Drive-in. It's so sad that most of the Drive-ins in Southern California are dead and gone. We used to go every weekend when I was a kid. If it wasn't the Van Nuys theater, it was the Winnetka. EVERY weekend during the summer.

THANKFULLY, some do still exist. We regularly go to the Mission Tiki Drive-in in Pomona. If you are nearby, check it out. $7 gets you a double-feature and the movies are new releases.

Anyway, we did (and do) things a little differently than others. Back in the days, we usually brought my dad's truck and loaded up with blankets. There would be 5 or 6 of us kids (my sisters and I, plus neighborhood friends) laying in the back of the truck and a couple in the front seat with Dad. Yes, we drove to the movies that way. Dangerous right? We loved it. We would make a game of trying to stay as flat as possible while trying to make sure the blankets didn't fly away.

I remember watching La Bamba and mom crying when he sang "Oh Donna," because her name is Donna. lol. I remember watching Jurrasic Park and telling my little cousin George to wake up because they were about to pass Barney on the screen. I remember watching Hocus Pocus and getting in trouble because my friend dared me to flip my sister off and I did. (Tattle-tell! lol) I remember watching The Lion King and getting angry because right when they started singing "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" the train decided to come by and last through the whole song so we couldn't hear any of it. (Is it me, or is/was every drive-in near a train track?)

Ah. Fun times! So many memories!

Now, we fill up the trunk with a ba-zillion old and new blankets and plenty of pillows. The old ones are used to make a mattress-like padding that is laid over the gravel. The new blankets we use to cover ourselves and stay warm. We lay out in the cool night air and enjoy our movie and we love it. You can talk, laugh, pass snacks around, and never bother anyone. You can't beat it.

I hope the Drive-in never completely dies because it will kill me if my kids never get to experience it...


Here's an excerpt from Mr. Nolte's ode to his drive-in days:

The price of admission wasn’t five dollars per person, it was five dollars per carload, and that admission wasn’t for one movie, it was for two and sometimes three. We would always arrive early so there would be no competition for a parking slot that no small amount of experimenting had proven to be the very best: a spot just off center but built a little higher than the others where the front wheels sat. As hours of movie-watching passed, this small advantage proved easier on the neck.

To avoid the cost of concessions there was the Styrofoam cooler, always packed with a beer or two for him, a wine cooler or two for her, and hot dogs wrapped in tinfoil that we would warm up between shows on the Riv’s mighty engine block.

In the dusk, children would take advantage of the broken-down playground that sat directly in front of the giant screen, and the sounds of their pleasure would then blend with the even sweeter sounds of tires crunching gravel, car doors slamming, and far-off adult voices and laughter all set to the tinny music that played through those deceptively heavy speakers before the show began. The sounds were timeless, and if you closed your eyes and took a moment, you could transport yourself back to when your parents were young. For all the many wonders available for only five-dollars a carload just off of Highway 145, the Starlight Drive-In was also a perfectly-kept time capsule of the year of its construction.

Before it got dark enough to justify doing so, the projectionist would always stubbornly start the first feature anyway, usually a second-run film. Still, we would all honk our horns and flash our headlights to mark the occasion. And what an occasion Hollywood delivered.

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