Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

Were you one of the lucky ones who saw The Beatles’ movie A Hard Day’s Night at The Meadow Glen Drive-In in 1964?

Drive-in theaters are making a comeback. The successful Mendon Twin Drive-In may be setting a welcomed new trend in the face of social distancing.

A lot of us remember going to the drive-in to see a movie. I can even recall going there in my pajamas. I remember my Uncle Joe taking us to the drive-in to see The Blob which came out in 1958. it’s one of my fondest childhood memories and we often bring it up at family gatherings. As soon as one of us kids got their license to drive, it was an overstuffed junk-box, full of your buddies, heading to the drive-in.

The drive-ins we went to the most were either The Meadow Glen or Medford Twin (Wellington). Remember driving up over the bumps to get a good spot close to the screen? How many of you actually hid in the trunk to sneak in? Back then there was still a lot of space in the trunks of cars even with a full-sized spare tires.

I did some research (a call to my friend Charlie), and it went like this: at first they charged by the person and then in later years, by the carload. We started hiding in the trunk when they started charging by the person. When they charged by the carload, I remember squeezing four people in the front and about eight in the back. We even used to sit on the hood and roof at times.

Remember the speaker, that faded and chipped silver monstrosity on the wire that crackled and squeaked, you had to move the car six times to maneuver it close enough to fit in the window, only to scratch the glass? I can’t remember when the sound started being broadcast over your car radio. You were instructed to tune to AM 1520 or something like that to pick up the movie’s audio.

When I was researching additional information for this article, I went to driveins.com. In 1972, there were 83 operating drive-ins in Massachusetts. The ones nearest to us here in Somerville were: Fresh Pond, Suffolk Downs, Saugus, Revere, Neponset and of course the two in Medford. Some of the movies we may have seen at the drive in were Superfly, Bruce Lee in Fists of Fury and The Godfather.

We stood in long lines after watching the dancing and singing food in the concession stand commercial, only to eat that cardboard pizza andthose rubber hot dogs. I believe it was the Meadow Glen drive-in that had that a round, horse trough-like contraption in the men’s room. The same guy who is responsible for the restrooms at the old Boston Garden, and Fenway Park probably designed it. Thanks for the memories!

In the really early days, my brother and sister and I used to sit in the back of dad’s ’53 Chevy and hit the drive-in. I can actually remember standing up in the back seat while dad drove. There were no seat belt laws back then, but dad’s arm use to swing back to protect us if there was a sudden stop. An occasional cigarette ash also made its way into the back seat. It’s a miracle some us kids weren’t blinded or burnt by our parents smoking in the car when we were kids.

Eventually beers replaced sodas, girlfriends replaced our buddies and the mall replaced the drive-in.

The Kowloon Restaurant in Saugus is turning their parking lot into socially distanced drive-in/ eat-in car experience. Bringing back drive-ins make a lot of sense. What next? Mullets? Bell-bottoms? Woo Woo Ginsburg and Adventure Car Hop!

Remember: be sure to replace the speaker before driving away.