Flickers of a Ghost

I got lost. Took a wrong turn, wound up in a different state, discovered a direction, and began to wind my way home.

I was tired, and the sunlight was fading rapidly behind the grey and black clouds roiling in the sky. So when I saw it, I tried to blink away the hallucination.

It is huge--a bright, pulsating marquee of yellow and orange, standing, it seems, at least two stories high. A white placard juts out, demanding passer-bys to come see the zombie movie premiere at the Hager 10 Cineplex. But the strange thing is that the marquee fronts an empty parking lot.

I drive by, but slow...the cineplex actually is about a football field or so away. What’s behind that empty lot, though, causes me to turn around.

For about 20 years, the Hager Drive-In had operated here alongside the cineplex, but 20 years ago, it closed down. The marquee is the only operating remnant of the drive-in left, but there are other bones.

The parking lot, which probably once held the bulk of the drive-in, stretches far back and curls all the way behind the indoor movie theater. Even though a Saturday crowd is at the cineplex, their numbers are dwarfed by the size of the lot. In a far corner sit the drive-through ticket booths, weirdly guarding the edge of an overgrown field. Only a year ago, the entryway was still intact, but since then, the roof with the Hager heraldry has crumbled, leaving the two booths standing free. A deteriorating snack bar and projection house building stands in the field, drowning in the brown weeds and vine.

As I gaze at the ghost, the skies open. The deluge matches my mood.

But the Hager may not be completely lost. According to Drive-In Theatres of the Mid-Atlantic, a group is working with the cineplex to to restore and reopen the drive-in. In the meantime, an inflatable screen shows double- and triple-feature revivals of b-movies past and present.

I hope they succeed. Drive-ins are an American creation, one in-grained in our collective conscious like Route 66, jazz, convertibles, and baseball parks. Losing part of the American identity to a dusty, historical relic would be more than a simple shame--we would be giving up a unique part of our culture willingly.

They’ve started to have a revival the last few years, but the resurrection can’t come fast enough. More than 200 drive-ins once dotted the landscape of Maryland and the Virginias. Now only 11 remain.

Far too many ghosts.