On the long hot nights of summer, I go to the drive-in. I get in the car with my husband and baby and roll down all the windows. While the cicadas sing and the sun sinks low, we breeze through the muggy honeysuckle air over to Hull's. Built on a hill, surrounded by cow pastures and an auto body shop, Hull's is owned and operated by Mr. and Mrs. Sebert Hull, whose ways of business and personal values are as retro as the refreshment stand prices. The Hulls have worked here since the fifties.
Telephone poles prop up the wide screen.
An old Farmall tractor still mows the grassy banks. On a sell-out night, like last Labor Day, automobiles touch taillight to headlight all the way back to the double highway. Beneath the bright bug light of his outdoor ticket shed, Mr. Hull works the line like a pro. Then the cars ease onto the worn and grassy banks and the doors pop open and buckets of kids bail out and packs of pre-teens and moms and dads and babies and dogs on short leashes. They drag out quilts.