Intermission at the Passion Pits
You get more out of life when you go to a movie!
There’s plenty of time to head on over to the snack bar!
Show Starts in 8 Minutes!
April 1977 was so unseasonably warm that the Navarre Drive-In Theater opened early. Everyone at school was jazzed. There weren’t a lot of hangouts outside of the Soda Fountain, or driving to Hopkins to cruise the main drag. But the Navarre Drive-In was a must-do.
Show Starts in 7 Minutes!
On Saturday, April 9, 1977, the ice went out on Lake Minnetonka. That afternoon Kim, her friend Diana and sister Andrea (aka Anny) and I packed into Mom’s car and I drove to the grocery store in Navarre, hitting the Dairy Queen on the way back to Mound. It was 70+ degrees Fahrenheit. Spring had come early.
Show Starts in 6 Minutes!
April 23, 1977, the diary entry begins: “Believe me, it was a Summer day today!” Dad and baby brother went fishing until noon while I planned my weekend back at the ranch. “After thinking last night,” I wrote, “I’ve got to consider taking a girl out to the Passion Pits (Drive-In) next weekend.” After 8 p.m. that night, Steve, my brother Brian, Chris Title, Gary Christenson and I “went up to the Drive-In and saw Burnt Offerings and Carrie.” Before leaving, I checked in with Kim.
Show Starts in 5 Minutes!
End of April. Temps in the low 80s. Just before Kristi left on the band trip to Winnipeg, I gave her a goodbye kiss. Seems I was playing it on all angles: Kim, Lisa, Kristi … because …
Show Starts in 4 Minutes!
…the weekend of Friday, April 29 and Saturday, April 30 was all about the Navarre Drive-In. Kim was roller skating in Hopkins, Lisa was under house arrest by Dale, Kristi was out of town … and, well, cat’s away, mice will play. Apparently.
Show Starts in 3 Minutes!
Steve and I went up to Third Stone Music after school that Friday. There we scored drive-in tickets for the night. The movies? Uptown Saturday Night and its sequel, Let’s Do It Again.
Show Starts in 2 Minutes!
Car tires crackle over gravel as they pull up to a theater stall. Doors slam, windows are cranked down. Those heavy metal speakers are pulled from their posts and hung in driver’s side windows. We had tickets to the DRIVE-IN! In Mom’s boxy tan Dodge Dart! Skeeze, of course, had to pull up in his family’s Cadillac. “[Bill] Gedney was there with his pickup truck and beer. Vince Marshall was with him.” There was a girl we all liked: Mary Jassim. Everyone was there that Friday night but Mary, who was petite, had dark brown hair, and dark eyes that killed. We probably talked about that, not watching the movie much. We sipped beers out of the back of Gedney’s truck, and scurried home after midnight.
Show Starts in 1 Minute!
Saturday, April 30, I wrote: “Woke up this morning feeling super great.” Funny that I also wrote: “…talked to myself a while down at the dock.” (This must’ve been my early version of tweeting.) Crazy. But the drive-in that Saturday night was ground zero of an amazing spring:
Mary Jassim was there.
It began, the diary reports, when I drove over to Steve’s and hung out before the show. Skeeze stopped by and later, Liz. Steve and Liz left to pick up Mike as he was getting off work. When they returned, Steve, Skeeze, Sara Mortenson and I went to the drive-in. No idea who we rode with, but if Skeeze was in, likely it was in his dad’s Caddy. I wanted to see Mary, so I walked the car lanes during intermission. She was with some other kids, but looked really lonely. Skeeze went looking for Sherry, so guess that left Steve and Sara alone in Skeeze’s car. Hard to say after all these years.
What the diary does say is that “Sara, Steve, Mary and I went back over to Steve’s, played pool and listened to Ted Nugent and Rush.” Mike and Liz had already showed up and were “fooling around” in a bedroom, but I took Mary home before 1 a.m.
I barely remember this. We both must’ve looked tired and sad and young.
So… “See You in CHURCH on Sunday! And now, On With The Show!”
Completely in the Dark 
Reblogged this on Completely in the Dark and commented:
Ah, memories of making out in cars at the drive-in theater. Summer. Love. 😀 All-new posts next Friday, June 26! Now hit the snack bar! 😉
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