My Drive-In May Rise from the Dead

My friend sent me a link to a new article about West Chicago's Cascade Drive-In, a theater which has been closed for over a year now.

As the drive-in of my childhood, its closure hit me particularly hard.

Not a lot of good has come out of the current pandemic we're experiencing. But here's something: with all the repercussions of coronavirus, the entertainment biz seems to have realized that people are not going to want to gather in movie theaters together any time soon.

But they might be willing to see movies in their cars.

This is great news for the drive-in theaters. They've always been a huge part of America's social history, but they're always overlooked. This might give us the chance to make sure that the drive-in doesn't die.

According to the Daily Herald, the owners of the land where Cascade used to sit are in talks with theater management about the possibility of reopening the drive in.

True, they said it probably wouldn't be in the immediate future (they sold all the equipment that the location used when it shut down last March, including all the car speakers), but that's not what's important to me. Frankly, all I care about is that this drive-in opens again.

This could actually be great for Cascade. As I mentioned, it was a theater that desperately needed an update. Now that everything is sold off, maybe this would give Cascade the chance to invest in important new amenities like better concessions and restrooms.

It's really exciting to think about what opportunities this presents. I'm really hoping that Cascade makes the comeback I always hoped for.

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My Panic Playlist

Hi, and welcome to the end of the world. Kind of.

It's Saturday now. Last Tuesday night, I got home from an art class and found my family facetiming my sister. She said her university was closing for the rest of the semester because of the coronavirus panic.

On Tuesday, that news seemed extreme.

Then Wednesday happened and the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.

After that, people pretty much freaked out.

I went to get my haircut and there was hand sanitizer at every single point of contact. There's no toilet paper - or much of anything, really - in the grocery stores, which are the only places people seem to be going at the moment. The lines are to the back of the store. Apparently, people also starting tackling each other for supplies at the Costco.

Additionally, don't plan on going anywhere. We've got a nationwide travel ban on, so no one can leave the country. When I called American Airlines to cancel our Spring Break trip, they hung up on me because they had no more phone lines available.

The government has also shut down every conceivable public gathering. For me, this hit home when they announced the cancellation of the first Formula 1 Race of the year and the closure of all Broadway shows on the same day.

No races. No theater. Go home.

Alright, we get it. Everything is cancelled. So since we're all supposed to be at home "social distancing" and trying not to die, it might as well be declared National Netflix Time. (But really. Imagine those Netflix viewing numbers right now.)

So, you ask, what's a gal like me watching in these apocalyptic times? I decided to do a coronavirus "playlist", much like my annual Halloween playlists, where I gather together all the movies and relevant episodes of a TV show under the umbrella of one theme.

The theme for today? Disease and panic.

Let's get watching!

*.*.*.*.*.*.* My COVID-19 Playlist *.*.*.*.*.*.*.*. 0.0 <3 :-)

TV

Rawhide

- Season 2, Episode 14, "Incident at Red River Station" (orig. air date: Jan. 15, 1960)

IMDb summary: Favor and Rowdy accidentally get the smallpox, and they leave the herd to find vaccine for themselves, and the town around.

Why? As usual, Rawhide is spooky relevant to today's situations. This is my favorite episode of anything about how people can panic over disease, especially when it isn't understood. It's also amazing to think about how far medicine has come since Gil and Rowdy's time.

- Season 4, Episode 30, "Abilene" (orig. air date: May 18, 1962)

IMDb summary: One of the drovers falls sick the night before they end the drive at Abilene. The sick man may have smallpox forcing the sheriff to quarantine the men. Favor needs to leave to seal a deal on a ranch and an old foe of Rowdy wants revenge.

Why? You can literally watch this episode and just replace every time they say "smallpox" with "coronavirus" and it's like watching today. Also, Rowdy tries to jump out of second story window.

Drake & Josh

- Season 3, Episode 8, "Paging Dr. Drake" (orig. air date: Oct. 1, 2005)

IMDb summary: After a botched weightlifting routine, Josh injures his toe and is forced to the hospital where Drake pretends to be a doctor in order to romance the nurses.

Why? Because of the part when Josh is afraid of being at the hospital and the doctors rush past Josh with a nurse saying, "What's wrong with the patient, Doctor??" and the doctor says, "I DON'T KNOW"

iCarly

- Season 6, Episode 2, "iGo One Direction" (orig. air date: April 7, 2012)

IMDb summary: One Direction is performing on iCarly, but Carly and Harry get sick.

Why? "I gave Harry Styles jungle worms." That's the only quote from this you need to know.

Parks and Recreation

- Season 3, Episode 2, "Flu Season" (orig. air date: Jan. 27, 2011)

IMDb summary: Leslie gets the flu right before an important fund-raising pitch for the Harvest Festival. Chris tries frantically to avoid catching the bug, and Ron hires Andy to replace April while she is out.

Why? There is no better episode of anything about trying to function when everyone is sick.

- Season 4, Episode 11, "The Comeback Kid" (orig. air date: Jan. 12, 2012)

IMDb summary: Leslie appoints Ann as her new campaign manager, but her attempt to relaunch the campaign goes off to a horrendous start, while Chris discovers that Ben is depressed after leaving his job.

Why? I mostly included this one because I relate to Ben being stuck at home making claymation movies. A lot like we are right now. And also because this is one of the best Parks episodes ever.

Movies

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (2016)

Why? Maybe it's the apocalyptic undertones, or possibly the widespread panic over who has the zombie disease, but rest assured that this movie is the most fun you're going to have while watching people panic over disease.

Warm Bodies (2013)

Why? Zombies. But also I kind of picture this being what the world will be like post-COVID-19. So hopefully it's this fun.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010)

Why? Because if the cheese touch isn't the exact equivalent of the coronavirus touch, then I don't know what is.

Help! (1965)

Why? The Beatles singing "Help!" seems to be the perfect anthem for this situation. Plus, nothing helps soothe a restless soul better than a little rock and roll music. Or Beatles humor, which never fails to crack me up.

They Closed My Drive-In

People often tell me their memories about drive-in theaters.

It usually goes something like, "We were seeing (this movie) and it was (this weather) and I was with (first name last name)".

Okay, so the memories, themselves, aren't always interesting.

But what is interesting is that going to a drive-in theater actually gives people a detailed memory of their experience. And that’s coming from a society that can barely remember we did this morning.

It isn’t easy to make a strong impression anymore. But a drive-in still manages to do that.

If your drive-in is still open, that is.

To me, there's nothing like seeing a movie outside. Our musty little American movie theaters, for all of their high-falutin' talk about heritage and tradition and prestige, are really just stuffy old rooms with newly-installed recliner chairs where you're forced to watch ads you don't want to see.

Don't get me wrong; movie theaters have a huge amount to offer us. And I grew up going to them. I think that our movie theaters, especially our historic ones, deserve every bit as much of a chance to be preserved and revered as our drive-in theaters do. But part of the movie theater experience, at least for me, is getting to say, "It smelled weird in there" or pointing at all the posters in lightboxes lining the halls like you're surveying the candy at the concession stand, deciding what you'd like to treat yourself to next. I love the movie theater experience, with all of its highs and lows.

But it's not the drive-in.

In March 2019, the Cascade Drive-In in West Chicago, Illinois, announced that they would be closing. Permanently.

The theater, which opened in 1961, was one of the last drive-in theaters in the Chicago suburbs.

This has left me very depressed. The Cascade Drive-In was my drive-in, the one I have been going to for as long as I can remember.

I've read endless articles about the closing. The scandalous announcement that they wouldn’t be reopening in the spring, like usual, was made on Facebook (who's surprised?). Apparently, Cascade was leasing the land from an owner who suddenly refused to renew the lease at the end of 2018, with no apparent reason except greed and malice. Many articles say that the owner didn't report any new plans for the land to the city, though others report rumors of the land owner’s intentions.

The way Cascade reported this seems a bit dramatic and one-sided, even for someone like me who believes in keeping our drive-ins open. I hate to say it, but the way it went down sounds like a case of a suburban theater pointing the finger at big business, which is a tired old tale. But, on the other hand, business can be ruthless, so who knows?

After the announcement, Cascade sold off all of their equipment and materials, including those tinny old speakers we hung over the car window if you couldn't get the radio station where they played the film's audio to come in. Every time I drive past the site these days, I still see the giant metal screen looming over what must now be an expanse of vacant gravel surrounded by a high wood fence.

Could we have saved the Cascade Drive-In?

Drive-In theaters were hit hard at the end of 2013, when the industry decided to no longer distribute traditional film reels to theaters. Everything had to go digital, which was a six-figure upgrade for theaters (like many drive-ins) who were still operating on the film system.

Cascade made the upgrade to digital, a smart decision considering how packed that 1200-car lot was on summer evenings, especially on the weekends. The owners of Cascade insisted that their business was "flourishing" when the land-owner decided to take matters back into their own hands, but I am skeptical about this as well.

As much as I'm sympathetic to the Cascade owners, and as dearly as I wish the theater was still open, I still have to say it: there was a lot that could have been better about Cascade.

The place may have forked over the money to upgrade to digital, but several other upgrades were sorely needed. The concessions stand was a total dive. The bathrooms were housed in cement and looked like they'd never even heard of bleach. The events, if there ever was one, was poorly marketed and scrappy. The management was unfriendly, which was perhaps the worst problem.

I get it. It ain't easy enforcing rules in a public space when people are left to their own devices in their cars, but the folks at Cascade used to be pretty rude about it. The management would drive golf carts down the aisles of cars and shine flashlights into the offending cars, usually because people had their car on when they weren't supposed to, or if they were parked in the wrong space. Sometimes even if they'd brought in food that they weren't supposed to.

I think the most annoying thing about Cascade was their little feud with the hot dog restaurant, Scoobie's, which was pretty much their only neighbor. No, seriously - it's a long expanse of highway, and then there's Scoobie's and Cascade right next to each other.

You'd see signs all over Cascade, as well as on their website, screaming that food from Scoobie's Hot Dogs was forbidden to be taken onto the premises. Why? Because Scoobie’s apparently refused to dim their giant lights so that patrons at the drive in located directly behind their restaurant could see the screen better.

I don't know the history, but the idea that a serious business like Cascade and a hot dog restaurant like Scoobie's couldn't figure out a way to work out their differences seems unbelievable. What is this, kindergarten? Was it really necessary for Scoobie's to flat out refuse to make any accommodations for their neighbor, a specialty location that was beloved by so much of the community? And was it really necessary for Cascade to then react like an angry kindergartener and make posters to slander their only neighbor?

It’s things like this which make me raise my eyebrows at the whole situation. And the rumors are flying.

I've heard that the land is being zoned for a bunch of different things, none of which I've seen any proof of. The one that still gives me nightmares, though, is that someone told me that the land owners were in talks with people in waste management, of all things.

That's right. Garbage. Where my drive-in was.

Again, there's been no proof of this. But the very idea that a rumor like this could circulate tells you how bad it is. Our drive-ins, which, in my humble opinion, should all be registered as locations of historical significance, are being thrown around in the same sentence as “garbage dump”.

So given all of Cascade's issues, at the business level and beyond, could we have really done anything to save it?

It would have been ugly and it would have required a lot of hard work. But I think we could have done it.

I know I just listed a bunch of reasons why Cascade was terrible, but I only know these reasons because I went there all the time. Because I loved that place. I was heartbroken to hear that it was closing.

That doesn't mean that my eyes were closed to the many problems they had, including their business plan, their marketing, their professional relationships, and their management. Not a great mix.

But if you take one look at the movies that are being made right now, you’ll see how much our society values familiarity. Every movie, every TV show is being remade. Anything with an audience is being sought after. Because people like familiar. People like having memories.

A drive-in is a historic site where people have gathered to experience entertainment for years. It stands for the history of the movies. It is a symbol of so many things that Americans value, both past and present. And if we’re going to look to the future, a drive-in is a great way to advocate for media memories at the movies without just carbon-copying an old classic film and putting it on screen again (*cough* Disney *cough*).

But the thing I regret the most about Cascade's closing is that there was so much potential. Think of all the things that could have made Cascade friendly, exciting, and truly thriving. This could all have been done in a way that preserves and reminds people of the way that drive-ins fit into our national history as well as our contemporary entertainment environment. Drive-In movie theaters have a unique business. Now that times are changing, we can't allow others to slip away.

I'll be the first to tell you that the Chicago suburbs needs more places like Cascade. Not gross dives or petty business feuds. But unique experiences that make the crazy seasons in Illinois worthwhile. It was lovely to have a piece of history just down the road and I am grieved to have lost it. I wish it had been handled better on all sides.

If you need help saving your drive-in, let me know. I want to help.