DRIVE-IN THEATERS ARE MAKING A COMEBACK

It seems that during this pandemic, drive-in theaters are making a big comeback. I really do miss the drive-ins that were in NH back in the 1960s. There were four we went to regularly, just about every weekend during the summer months. There isn’t any way they will be returning, however, as there now are office buildings and shopping plazas where they once stood.

The last time I went to see a drive-in movie was back in 1997. By then, there were only two choices – Weirs Beach or Milford.  Both were pretty far from where we lived, but Milford was a few miles closer.  

 All that summer, my husband kept mentioning his burning desire to recapture his youth by going to a drive-in movie. I basically ignored his hints until after Labor Day, when I read in the paper that the drive-ins would be closing for the season the next night. Feeling guilty, I mentioned it to him.

“We’re going!” he said in a tone that invited no argument. “I don’t even care what’s playing. I’m not about to wait another whole year to go to a drive-in!”

So late the next afternoon, I loaded the car with blankets and jackets (because the weather report said the temperature was going to be in the 40s that night) and a portable radio. The portable radio was going to take the place of the old-fashioned car speakers the drive-ins once had. No more speakers being torn from their poles like back in the good old days. The audio for the movie now could be heard by tuning in to a specific FM radio station. I imagined that the people in the surrounding houses that had a view of the movie screen were pretty pleased. No longer did they have to read lips from their front porches. All they needed was a portable radio to finally hear all of the dialogue.

“I’m hungry,” my husband said the minute we pulled into a spot in the fifth row from the screen. “I’m craving a cheeseburger.”

“You’re not actually considering buying one of those dried-out mystery-meat concoctions sitting under a heat lamp in the snack bar, are you?” I asked.

“Yes! I’m here to recapture my youth, remember? I want to do everything I did as a kid!”

“Then maybe you should have worn your Lone Ranger pajamas and then fall asleep in the back seat!” I joked.

Knowing that my husband had a bad knee, so walking to the snack bar probably would take him an hour and he’d miss half the movie, I volunteered to go for him.

Once inside the snack bar, I was surprised to see a sign that said all of the food that night was being prepared fresh. So I got brave and ordered a cheeseburger for myself, along with some fries. I told the employee to make sure the burgers were well-done.

As I stood waiting for my food, the building began to fill with smoke. It wasn’t long before my eyes were watering and my throat was burning.

“The exhaust fans aren’t working,” an employee explained to me as she tried to stifle a smoke-induced cough. “Neither is the pizza oven. We’ve had a pizza in there for 15 minutes now and it’s still raw.”

By the time my burgers and fries were ready, I felt as if I needed to be treated for smoke inhalation. When I picked up one of the burgers, which was wrapped in foil, however, it felt more like an ice-cream sandwich than a burger.  Puzzled, I opened the wrapper.  The bun was frozen solid.

“The hamburger buns are frozen!” I said to the employee, just as the manager walked in.

“Did anyone remember to turn on the bun warmer?” he shouted at the employees. They all just shrugged.

“You’ll have to excuse us tonight,” he apologized to me. “It’s our last night and we’re having a few problems. Our handyman, who’s also the projectionist, will hopefully straighten things out when he gets here.”

“He’s not here yet?” I asked, wondering when the movie would be starting. At the rate things were going, I figured it probably wouldn’t be until about 10 PM.

“Let me take care of these burgers for you,” the manager said, grabbing them from me. I watched in horror as he tossed them and the fries into the trash and started cooking new burgers. I’d thought he was just going to shove them into the microwave to heat up the buns, not start over from scratch. I’d already been gone so long, I was afraid my husband might be thinking I’d left him for another man.

“You smell like a smoked ham,” my husband said, wrinkling his nose, when I finally returned to the car. I had been gone over a half-hour by then. “And where have you been? I was getting worried!”

“There was a big problem with the ventilation system in the snack bar,” I said, handing one of the burgers to him and taking the other one for myself. 

“Open your window,” he said. “No offense, but you stink.”

So much for drive-in romance, I thought.

We both bit into our burgers at the same time and both made the same face.

“There’s nothing on mine,” my husband said. “Where’s the ketchup? I’ll need some for the fries, too.”

In my haste to get back to the car, I’d forgotten to put anything on the burgers.

I dashed back to the snack bar to grab a few packets of ketchup. The only problem was, there were no packets  – there was only a bowl of ketchup, with a spoon.

So I ran back to the car, grabbed the burgers and fries and headed back to the snack bar, where I broke all speed records flinging ketchup onto everything that even resembled meat, including my arms. I also dumped a hefty amount into the container of fries. Then I bolted back to the car, just as the movie was starting.

My husband took a bite of his burger and frowned. “Now it’s cold.”

The look I shot at him contained so many daggers, he knew better than to say another word. I’d already run the equivalent of the Boston Marathon that night, so I was in no mood for any complaining.

He ate every crumb.

The movie was “G.I. Jane,” starring Demi Moore. The screen was so dark, I honestly couldn’t tell which actor she was. Then, to make matters even worse, she shaved her head in the movie so she would look more like “one of the guys.”  From that point on, I mistook just about every guy in the cast for her at one time or another.

“I don’t remember drive-in screens being this dark,” I said to my husband.

“Oh, they’ve always been dark,” he said. “It’s just that no one ever really noticed it because they didn’t go to drive-ins to actually watch the movies anyway.”

He had a point. The windows on just about every car around ours already were fogged up. Ours, however, were as dry as the Sahara.

To make my movie viewing even more challenging, the brake lights on the car directly in front of ours suddenly popped on, bathing our car in a red glow. The light in the car’s back window was especially annoying, shining right into our faces. Ten minutes later, the brake lights still were on.

“Great,” I muttered. “Leave it to us to park directly behind some guy who’s too dumb to realize his foot’s on the brake pedal! I’m going to go tell him!”

“No way!” my husband snapped. “He could be some psycho with a gun and he’ll shoot you full of holes for disturbing him! You stay put. I’ll go talk to him.”

“Oh, sure! As if seeing some hulk of a guy peering into his car window will make him feel any less threatened?”

Before my husband could utter another word, I was out of the car and banging on the window of the car in front of ours. Let’s just say that from what I could tell through the fogged-up glass, I was interrupting the guy and his partner at one of the worst possible moments anyone could interrupt someone at a drive-in. My husband’s warning about being shot full of holes instantly popped into my head, and  I wondered if my life-insurance policy was in order.

“Your brake lights have been on for 15 minutes!” I shouted through the glass. Then, without waiting for a response, I dashed back to our car.

To my relief, the brake lights went off.

“There! I took care of it!” I said to my husband.

But my smugness was premature. The brake lights not only came back on, they also adapted an on-and-off pattern, which was even more annoying.

“I think he’s sending me signals in Morse code for disturbing him,” I said. “He’s probably spelling out a bunch of swear words.”

My husband chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t think it’s Morse code, but there’s a definite ‘rhythm’ to the lights going on and off, if you know what I mean.”

I didn’t even want to think about what he meant, but I figured if he was right, the lights probably would be off in another five minutes or so.

They weren’t, and the blinking continued throughout the entire movie.

We didn’t get home until 1:30 in the morning. By then I felt as if I’d just participated in a triathlon.

“So, did you succeed in recapturing your youth tonight?” I asked my husband.

“Yeah,” he said, yawning. “And now I’m perfectly willing to set it free again.”

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Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist and the author of “There’s a Tick in my Underwear!” “Heed the Predictor” and “The Common-Sense Approach to Dream Interpretation." Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.