Drive-in Magic

As a child, my family and I used to go to the Drive-in.  My earliest recollection was from about six or seven.  We were watching Alien.  To this day, one of my all-time favorite films.  I can see it vividly, as if it were happening today.  I am sitting in the back seat of my parents' Chevy, arms resting on the backs of their chairs, on the edge of my seat--literally--peering through a dirty windshield at the giant screen above me. 

This wouldn't be our first--or last--visit to the Drive-in.  I later went with some friends to see the re-release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  And one other time it was some scary slasher flick; a B-movie (I can't remember the name now) that I haven't ever seen since.  The movies themselves didn't really matter though, did they?  It was the experience of the Drive-in that made those nights so special.  It could have been any movie flying forth from the projection booth.  What stuck with me afterwards was the sitting out under the stars, covered in a flannel blanket, the smell of popcorn and French fries emanating from the snack bar, while the voices rattled from inside that little black box resting on our car door, in unison with their faces above us.  It was magical!

Now-a-days the Drive-in has lost a little of its magic.  My husband and I went a few times while we were dating; however, the back of his station wagon was not as comfortable I remembered the back of my parents' car to be.  More recent visits, with our own kids, have been more about making sure they have fun...and about having a place where loud noises and temper-tantrums are not cause to be promptly removed from the premises. 

The smells of popcorn and French fries now remind me of the extra ten pounds I need to take off from the winter; flannel blankets serve as a cover from the mosquitoes and flies; and the voices on screen can barely be heard beneath the sounds of my children's endless chatter and constant quibbling.  So I wonder...what continues to draw us to this place, once so full of magic and wonder and now so wonderfully--ordinary??

Perhaps it's the hope that it will regain its magic, whisking us away once more into the days of our youth.  Or maybe it is the desire to make this place for our children what it was for us not so long ago.  Maybe that is the closest we will ever get to being children again ourselves.  When I watch my girls snuggled up in blankets, gorging on funnel cakes and French fries, peering at the big screen above them from the back of my open mini-van, I know the answer.