With the Red Sox in an early August tailspin, Jerry Remy and Dave O’Brien needed something to fill the grim innings. Something to divert them from the diversion they’re paid to talk about. They settled on the drive-in movie theaters of their youth. Even the youngish Guerin Austin chimed in.
Here in Maine where trends are slow to arrive and even slower to depart, drive-ins had mainly faded away by the early 1980s though a few stubborn hold-outs still plug away here and there. Remdawg’s reminiscences about the big boxy speaker hanging off the car window, parking on a hill, “Let’s all go to the lobby,” playing between features, and the thrill of riding into the drive-in hidden in the trunk of a Plymouth Valiant ring true in Brunswick, Maine as much as in Somerville Mass.
The Bowdoin Drive-In, located about where the Walmart is now, faded away first, leaving no trace at all. “Cinema Treasures” suggests the Brunswick Drive-In on the Portland Road closed around 1984. Just a whisper of its grandeur persists.
But the silver screen still lights up the summer skies of Brunswick. Since 2012 the NorthWest Brunswick Neighborhood Association and the Town of Brunswick have put on monthly summer movie nights in Davis Park. No cars, and the neighbors get to hear the movies, but there is plenty of food even without a lobby. Tess’s Market is right there, and Taco the Town, or some other local vendor will be on hand.
The next movie, “The Lego Movie 2,” will play Thursday, August 15 at dusk. Bolos will be there with chips and salsa, there will be a field hockey clinic and camp games to warm up the crowd and pass the time waiting for the sky to darken.