Settling In at the Drive-In – Photo: L. Weikel

Sideways

Today was a day. It started with a flat tire and progressed (regressed?) from there. We all have them, though. Those days when we wake up and feel a vague sense of anticipation – only to have everything go sideways in completely unexpected ways.

The stress only escalated when the ‘donut-spare’ was discovered to be flat as well. We seemed to be in the midst of a comedy of errors. Murphy’s Law seemed to be the operating principle for several hours. Eventually, though (after morning turned into lunchtime and then progressed into a hot and sticky afternoon before we accomplished a darn thing), we discovered that the flat was caused by a nail, thus rendering it easily reparable. Yes! I’ll take it! And call it a small, if significant, win.

Things Got Better

But you know what? We managed to salvage the day and retrieve our attitudes from the mulch pile where they’d been stuffed earlier. Saving the day was accomplished by indulging in the relaxing and nostalgic fun of going to a drive-in movie again. You might recall our foray into this ‘old-timey’ manner of enjoying the summer while in the safe (both outdoor and distanced) company of other people last year.

Re-reading that post and looking at the photos of the animation that danced across the big screen during the intermission between the main feature and the second movie of the evening makes me laugh all over again. I love that the Shankweiler’s Drive-In keeps those dated animated spots.

Honestly, it’s amazing to see how much more risqué and sarcastic a lot of early tv and movie entertainment used to be. Old-fashioned humor is often much more subtle than we’re used to now. In a lot of ways, in spite of the much more overt sexuality, violence, and profanity we see nowadays, sarcasm and naughtiness was every bit as present 50-60 years ago. Viewers just had to work a little harder to ‘get’ it. Or maybe it’s that we don’t expect it to be as odd as it actually was.

It was quite the dance… – Photo: L.Weikel

Grateful

I’m just grateful we were able to salvage the day.

In case you’re wondering, we saw Black Widow. I thought it was good; mostly I enjoyed the dialogue and personalities of some of the characters. I have to admit, though, I find seemingly non-stop ten minute long relentless footage of car chases or shoot-outs or aerial assaults extremely tedious and boring. Just because the special effects are available doesn’t mean we have to be relentlessly bludgeoned over the head with them. Then again, it is a Marvel movie, so it was in character.

The second movie was Cruella. I admittedly had pretty low expectations for it, to be honest. And given our experience with the second movie of the evening last year, we’d made a pact that if it really stank we’d leave early. Given all those doubts, it was pretty good. It had more recognizable faces in it than I was expecting and it gave an interesting backstory to the villain of 101 Dalmations.

All in all, the day turned out tremendously better than it started. Thanks, Tiffany, for the great suggestion!

“The Oldest Drive-In in America” – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-125)