The Drive-In

Hello, I'm Phil T. Bear and I'm one and a half! And, last night, we went to the Drive-In for the first time in my whole life, even if Spauld and Ted have gone before.

What's a Drive-In? Same thing I asked. A Drive-In is when you take your car to the movies, but you stay in it and watch the movie on a really big screen in front of the car. (If you're seeing the screen out your back window, you've parked wrong.)

There aren't many around anymore, so this one is an hour away. It was also the first time I left my home state, too. We drove over a really big bridge with a river under it. The Delaware River's so big, I'm not sure I could swim across, but Spaulding told me no one wants to swim across it there.

And, wow, I'm telling you, if you've never been to New Jersey, you're missing a magical place! People in New Jersey must be really rich. They're houses aren't even attached to their neighbor's houses. They got these things called "side yards" and these other things called "front yards." And they have grass all over the place, and trees, and bushes, and sidewalks, not just for everybody to walk on, but special sidewalks that they walk on to avoid grass when walking to their front doors. Why have grass if you don't want to walk on it? But, anyways, it's amazing to see!

And some of them must be really, really rich, a'cuz they don't even have neighbors! They have woods and fields! And, there's nothing in the fields but shrubs and tall grass. Nothing at all!

And, and, and, they have these thingies all along the roads called "strip malls." And, they have to drive to them, because everyone has so much land, and who's gonna walk that far with so much space between houses? And, once they get there, they can park their cars, drop off their laundry for something called a "dry cleaner." Imagine! Someone else doing your laundry! And, then you can walk to the next store and rent a movie. Imagine, renting movies without a mailbox! And, then you can walk to the beary next store and spend just a dollar for anything in the store. I wonder if they have hotdogs?! And, and, and, then you walk to the beary next store and buy a pizza. Yeah! I'm telling you! Strip malls have pizza parlors in them, just like we have on street corners.

Now, we did have Mommy and Daddy stop in one strip mall. (There's a whole lot of them in New Jersey.) Well, they had to stop. We had driven a good 15 minutes, so we were hungry, and it had a Weiner joint. You know you're in fancy place when people call their hotdogs "wieners," but we weren't fooled. They were hotdogs. We ate them all.

And another 15 minutes later, Mommy and Daddy stopped for dinner at a diner. At least, New Jersey has dinners, too. So, while they ate, we were hungry and went into the kitchen. Apparently, every diner knows my brothers. They didn't even ask to be introduced to me, until the hotdogs were grilling. AND, they had one of the kids (who was really, really old) take the truck to buy more hotdogs, a'cuz they knew we were going to eat all they had. And … we did. Yummers!

So, we were stuffed afterwards, but we're always stuffed! We're stuffed animals, after all. And, 15 minutes later, we stopped off at a WaWa. Did you know a WaWa is a convienent store? All this time I thought it was a morning coffee, but the coffee was named for the store. (I also thought the store was named for the coffee.) We polished off the WaWa hotdogs, too.

So, we finally got to the Drive-In! It was a bit dicey until dark. There were people walking around checking out cars, and we were afraid they might bearnap us, until Mommy s'plained they were making sure people paid extra if they brought their own snacks, like we did. Apparently, the cost to see the movie is collected by the studios and the movie place's moneymaker is the snacks. But, we brought our own popcorn and muffins, a'cuz popcorn at the movies has too much salt and fat. BUT, when Mommy and Daddy weren't looking, we polished off the hotdogs there too. We would have polished them off twice, but we only stayed for one movie.

So, before the sun went down we watched people throwing all kinds of stuff – baseballs, footballs, and even these things called "Frisbees." That's sorta like a pie pan made out of plastic. Matter of fact, Daddy taught us that they were pie pans when people started throwing them. And, we saw why Americans rarely win soccer games. (I know, that's "football" everywhere else, but, if you ever saw an American kid kicking around a soccer ball, you'd know we have to call it something different. It's just not the same.)

And, and, and, the movie sound came over our radio, so we had to listen to the right channel, and we bears got our floppy on, when dancing to the oldies before it got dark out.

But, of course, we came to see The Prince of Persia and then Robin Hood, so it was really exciting when the Star Spangle Banner started playing, until … another car pulled in next to us. Our radio turned to static. We forgot someone stole our antenna, again. We don't need the antenna too often, a'cuz we have a CD player, so we forgot.

Mommy volunteered to go rent a radio. We couldn't hear any of the Previews while she was gone. We collected out quarter when she came back and used colorful language. We tried to get her to use more colorful language, but she's wise to us, and just smiles, before handing over the money. She wanted to leave. It seems people wait until the last minute to get their snacks, too, and there isn't a separate line for rented radios and chairs. It was a beary long line!

 BUT, Daddy saved the day. He inched the car up a little, and we got sound. Later on, we found out it was only beary loud sound. We didn't care. The quiet sound was the two main characters talking mushy stuff. We were there for the action. And there was lots of action – sword fights, battles, chase scenes, and even a special kinda race. (I'd tell you more, but don't want to give any of the plot away, but they weren't racing like you're thinking.) AND, it had magic in it! What else could a guy want to see in a movie? Oh, wait – no stuffed animals and there was yucky kissy stuff. Still, it's a beary good movie for the whole family to see.

It wasn't over until close to midnight. Mommy and Daddy decided to go home before seeing Robin Hood. We would have complained, but we were falling asleep. I was a bit disappointed, a'cuz I hoped to see more of New Jersey on the way home, but they don't have something over there that we have – streetlights! Well, they only have streetlights if we're coming up on an exit, so there was only darkness and the road.

That's the last thing I remembered seeing. I fell asleep before going over the big bridge again. I woke up with my honey, Lee in my arms. It just doesn't get better than that.