I went to my first drive-in movie when I was 13. I went with my best friend Brian and his sister Mary, nicknamed Murr, and Brian's mom (she did not have a nickname).
Before we talk about all that, let me give you a little background. I moved to Upland, Indiana from Roanoke, Indiana in 1970. I was 12 years old that year and it was a great year for me, as I recall. I played some little league baseball, went swimming at Lake Wawasee during summer vacation and we all went to Florida for Christmas vacation. That was a good year.
We moved to Upland that summer because my dad was going to be the new pastor at the United Methodist Church there. I was going there to be the new 12 year old kid who had just moved from Roanoke. I fulfilled my duties with ease as soon as I passed the town limit sign.
Mom moved with us. That seemed to work out well. I also moved there with my older brother Steve, my older sister Mary, and my younger brother Mike. Steve had introduced me to Three Dog Night and bought me my very first "record album." It was "Cosmo's Factory" by Creedence Clearwater Revival. (Brian would buy my second album: "Abbey Road.") NOTE: Steve did enjoy some Three Dog Night, but I never smelled any "funny" smells coming from his room, re: "Mama Told Me Not to Come."
Mary loved animals, and I remember the salamander she found (I bet you can guess its name), and the fact that it lost its tail at some point; probably while being pursued by one of our cats. (Okay, okay, the Salamander's name was, um, Sally.)
Mike was two years younger than me and we slept in the same room. I had to persuade him to play catch with me by calling him a sissy. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn't.
One of the very first people I met that summer we moved was Brian Wolf and his cousin Kurt Fishtorn. Brian was my age and Kurt was my sister Mary's age, 15. Kurt came by to invite Mary to some small town summer thing, but declined. Brian was just along for the ride. In July Brian and Kurt invited me to watch the Major League Baseball All-Star game. We went to Kurt's house and watched Pete Rose slam into Ray Fosse in extra innings to win the game and shorten Fosse's career. The first one he meant to do; the second, I'm sure he didn't. That's Charlie Hustle.
One summer evening, when the sun still stays out until after 8 PM or so, Brian's mom took me and Brian and Murr to the drive-in. The four of us got in for like 50 cents for the whole car.
Now, there are lots of places where you can park a car at a drive-in. You get to choose. You can park wherever you want. You can park about half-way back, near the snack bar. You can park all the way in the back row and do whatever people do in the very back row of the drive-in. There are many places to park. For some still unexplainable reason, we parked in the very front row of the theater. Even with the little built-up pile of rock under the front wheels of the car we were still looking at maybe the bottom fourth of the screen, and...the playground equipment. Yep, a swing set and a little slide for the kiddies. You don't see the swing set from back by the snack bar or in the very back row. Nope.
My very first drive-in, ever, and if I had sat straight up in the back seat of Brian's mom's car I would only have seen 25% of the movie, so to speak. Movies, I should say. The special offer with the car full of people for 50 cents included four, count 'em, four movies. Four. I remember one in particular and have a vague recollection of one of the other movies. Maybe we didn't stay for all four of those summertime drive-in flicks, in Indiana, on the front row of the drive-in.
Brian and I had to scrunch way down in the back seat and crane our necks sideways for hours. We watched four movies on three fourths of the screen. It didn't really matter that much anyway. We were 13 and found a way to make the entire experience a total blast: we mocked everything we were watching.
Like this. The movie I remember the most was called My Side of the Mountain. The long story short is that this kid got separated from his parents on their vacation to the mountains and he survived by living in a tree and by finding stuff to eat in the vicinity and did it all with excruciating unbelievability. He made fire and talked with the animals and walked with the animals, oh wait, wrong film. Anyway, we had so much fun making fun of that movie. We were suppressing laughter the entire time and making stupid comments that only 13 year-olds can make.
One of the other movies was about racing or something.
We had so much fun that we didn't really care that those movies were crappy. It just gave us more to make fun of, and we made ourselves laugh. I don't know if Brian's mom or Murr liked any of the four movies, but Brian and I had the best time we've ever had at a drive-in.
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