Going to the Drive-In As a Young Parent With My Beautiful Family

I’ve always loved movies.Luke Skywalker has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up with Indiana Jones, the Goonies, Rocky, Christopher Reeve’s Superman (the only Superman in my opinion), and Snake Plissken.My friends and I used to debate whether George Lucas or Steven Spielberg was the better director. That was a common question in the 80s.If a film had Sean Connery in it, I was going. I think I liked him best in Time Bandits.In a crowded room, I used to wait for a natural lull in the conversation and scream out, “KHAAAAN!” Sometimes, somebody from across the room would answer with the echo. Then I’d go over and talk to them and we’d become friends for life (this only worked once, but once was enough).I’ve never wanted to work in movies. I don’t need to know the secrets. I wouldn’t want to disrupt the magic. Movies provide me with a special kind of spiritual nourishment. I’m wise enough not to question why. I just sit back and enjoy the ride.Naturally, when I had kids, I wanted to share my love of movies with them. To date, I think I’ve been happiest watching movies with my family at the drive-in.The best-laid plans…One of the things that nobody tells you about having kids is that it becomes very difficult to keep up to date with movies. I guess that’s called growing up.My wife and I didn’t like the idea of leaving our kids with anyone until they’d learned how to talk. I’m fine with people calling me overprotective.I am. That’s my job.Since we weren’t going to the movies, I got a digital projector. My eldest daughter loved Peter Pan. We’d get to the end and she’d go, “Again…again…again!” My youngest daughter loved Toby Maguire as Spider Man. “Again…again…again!”The first time you watch Mary Poppins with your kids is sublime. Few films reach a level of magic like the rooftop sequence. Also, having kids makes you recognize how good a singer Julie Andrews is. Lesser music becomes torture as endless repetition magnifies the minor imperfections. No matter how many times you listen to Julie Andrews, you can’t find any faults.So, there was a half-decade when the only movies my wife and I saw involved being human pillows for the kids. Those were great days.Eventually the river of time went around a bend and we realized our kids were ready to watch something new. My wife and I looked at each other and realized, so were we! The question then became where to take them? What was a good midpoint between the living room and the theater?Then it hit me: the drive-in!Stop whatever you’re doing and take your family to the drive-inIt’s getting to be that the drive-in is a relic from history. That’s a shame because drive-ins are the greatest invention in American history.From the moment you pull up, you know the experience is going to be special. It’s like watching a movie in a baseball field. The way to the drive-in is a dirt road lined with shoots of lime-green grass. The sky is bluer than a Microsoft Windows screensaver. The kids are rolling around in the backseat. There are no seat belts because it’s 1982 again. You’re a young parent. Your whole life is ahead of you! Those are the great days!The first thing I learned as a parent is that kids are pretty easy to deal with if you let them run around. Most of the time when parents get frustrated with their kids it’s because the kids won’t sit still. Well, kids weren’t designed to sit still! They’re designed to run and jump and climb up on top of rickety playground material made from rusty metal that makes mom scream, “GET DOWN FROM THERE THIS INSTANT!”You see, that’s the beauty of the drive-in. You have to get there early to park and then wait for sundown. The owners knew this, so they put in a rickety old playground over by the screen. While you get set up, the kids go over there and play with the other kids.“Hey drive-in kids!”“Hey!”“What should we play?”“How about ‘run around and scream?’”“I love playing run around and scream!”You can’t stop it, just let them get it out of their system, that’s how raising kids works.The palletsOur drive-in had wooden pallets in front of the parking space. I used to bring along an old camping mattress and put it on the pallet. Then I’d lay down pillows and blankets and snacks.Telling kids not to play is like trying to get water to flow uphill. If you just relax and let them run for a while, like water, they eventually come flowing back over to you.“I’m hungry!”Then they eat approximately seven times their body weight, drink so much soda that their cheeks and fingers get all sticky, then they lay down and start to say, “When is the movie going to start?” But they don’t have time to speak the words because at that exact moment, the projector lights up and the kids are instantly pacified.Ah, that distinctive sound of a projector at the drive-in. You only notice it at the beginning, then you’re lulled into the world of dreams. The projector hum is like an anesthesiologist counting backwards from ten.“Guardians of the Galaxy”There are perfect movies for a date, there are perfect movies to watch at home, and there are perfect movies for the drive-in.I think I love drive-in movies most of all.You need something with bright colors because there’s still going to be light in the sky when the movie starts.Jaws is a good drive-in move, Star Wars is, so is Independence Day. A drive-in movie should have plenty of spectacle, it shouldn’t take itself too seriously, and it should have at least a few moments that make you want to stand up and go, “Hoooray!”The first time I went to the drive-in with my family, the projector hum started, and I was overcome by a sense that I was about to watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This thought came upon me with such force that I had to shake my head to clear it. It was only later that I realized that Encounters must have been the last film I’d seen at a drive-in.It’s a wonderful thing when something triggers a memory, particularly if it’s a summer memory from when you were a child.As an adult, the year I spent the most time at the drive-in was the summer of Guardians of the Galaxy. That’s a perfectly acceptable drive-in movie. Each scene is jam packed with a ton of vibrant colors. The main character often broke out into an unapologetic dance that made my girls giggle.I’m glad that they got to watch a movie that showed them it was acceptable to break out into spontaneous dance whenever they wanted. That’s as good a life lesson as you can hope for from a drive-in movie, heck, from anywhere.The second filmIt’s rare these days that I come across what I think is a “fair price.” Most of the time, prices seem excessive. When something strikes me as fair, I’m always mindful to be grateful. Finding something that seems cheaper than it should be is like stumbling into a forest clearing and finding a unicorn.Drive-ins are cheaper than they should be.Drive-ins are unicorns.You get to stuff your car full of as many people as you want and watch two films. That was the other problem with taking our kids to a regular theater. It would have been $50 to watch one film. Taking the kids to the drive-in to watch 2 films was around $12, plus whatever you spent on popcorn, soda, and scalding hot pepperoni pizza.In the summer of Guardians of the Galaxy, that was always the first film. That one was for the kids. That was okay because the kids came to run around on the playground, play with the drive-in family, eat pizza, and jump up and down on the pallets. Plus, they liked watching Guardians over and over.Usually, they were asleep before Guardians ended. They’d snuggle in under the covers beneath the flickering lights of an outdoor theater. My wife and I would be on either side of them. A calm would settle over the parking lot, the teenagers would go home, and we’d stay to watch the second movie.So it was that my wife and I got to watch new releases again.Packing upIt gets dark late in the summer. That’s why they call it summer. By the time you get done with the second movie, you’re in the wee hours.Another of the best parts about being a dad is gathering up your slumbering children and placing them in the car. It’s a lovely thing to have them be so small and perfect that they fit right in your arms. You don’t have to worry about dropping them because they’re sticky with soda and popcorn butter and pizza sauce. That’s a happy kid.By the time you get home, it’s early. The kids aren’t waking up until after noon the next day. Going to the drive-in is like getting two days of family activity for the price of one.In the morning, you can get up and have a quiet breakfast with your wife. When you’re a parent, that’s even more rare than having a night out.When the days are short and the years are longSummer days for a child should be filled with flickering dreams of joy and triumph and impossibly distant places. They fall asleep flying a spaceship to Xandar and they wake up the next day in their own bed, not really sure where the movie ended and their own dreams began.Perhaps they’ll remember decades from now when they take their own children to the same film and find that the experience evokes a memory that makes the past indistinguishable from the present. I hope they’ll feel my presence and remember me back when I was young.The drive-in closed downMy children grew, and they became old enough to sit still in a conventional theater. We got out of the habit of going to the drive-in. A few years later, I was scrolling through the news and I read that our local drive-in had closed.I blinked. I read the headline again. I processed it.The next thing I knew I was in tears. This happens to me sometimes. The tears come on me like a flash flood, and then they pass. Again I remembered pudgy little legs jumping up and down on the mattress on the pallet. It was like I was there.Our former drive-in is gone, but there’s another one a little further up the road. It’s hanging on like an old boat anchored in a river stubbornly attempting to resist the flow of time. If we went, we’d be home later. Perhaps my wife and I could have a quiet brunch…My kids are still under my roof, but the river can’ be resisted forever. It doesn’t even matter what’s playing. If you love movies, you have to see one on a warm summer night, beneath the stars, surrounded by your family.Should they fall asleep, I’m still strong enough to carry them home.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! 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