The Simple Joy of a Drive In

There is only one Drive-in Theater left in the Denver area, the "Eighty-Eight" up on 88th Avenue and Rosemary Street in Commerce City. Dry and dusty as all drive-ins tend to be when it has not recently rained, it is not pretty. But there is a peculiar industrial beauty to the place with its rusting neon sign amid a tangle of telephone and power wires. The tower screen is made of corrugated tin painted white, many of the posts marking spaces no longer hold speakers and are bent due to collisions. Sometimes I have fantasized about the perfect drive in, but the thing is that if a drive in were perfect with nicely mowed grass and concrete parking spaces and surrounded by trees to keep out light pollution, it would lose some of the charm.

Going to a drive in is all about being able to bring in your own food and having enough space to behave badly. It is just like cars vs. mass transit. In a car you can talk back to the radio, sing along, or whatever you please. This is why I love going to bad or silly movies at the drive-in because then whatever group I am with can keep up a running commentary without bothering other patrons without our wit. Which Richie and I did to a certain extent as we watched first Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and then Iron Man last Sunday night. I was drinking very strong Thai Iced tea (it still needs to have the amount of anise reduced a bit), eating popcorn, bad Chinese food, and drinking soda. I just wish the 88 still had funnel cakes because that would have been a perfect addition to our self indulgent fare.

The movies were good, the wait to get in was long (show up at about a hour and a half before sunset, don't worry if the line is long), and we were up quite late because of this. But it was a lot of fun and reasonably priced at just eight dollars per person.