Category Archives: Minnesota

Project Drive-In roundup 3: Dark of the screen

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I warned you that it might come to this. With less than a week left in Honda’s Project Drive-In voting period, I’ve found media reports about a few more of the candidates.

Here’s something confusing: Some of those media reports only partially duplicate other reports. That is, if a new story lists drive-ins A, B, and C, but a story from one of my first two round-ups already mentioned A and C, then I’ve added B as a new candidate in this third round-up. If you click through to the story, it’ll mention all three, but we know that B is the only one that’s new to this list. Okay?

With that in mind, let’s go through a few more:

And that should hold us on Project Drive-In news until they start talking about winners. Wouldn’t it be nice if Honda chose more than five?

Reminisce with the past and current owners of the Verne

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Verne_URLThis week, the Worthington (MN) Daily Globe gave us a present of the kind of relaxing, fun drive-in theater article that’s always a pleasure to read. The occasion was a meeting of Walt Deutsch, a guy who owned the Verne Drive-In Theater (Luverne MN) back in 1960s and 70s, and Glenn Burmeister, the guy who owns it today.

There are so many highlights, but I was most struck by a story that sounds a lot like a report we carried about a Russian drive-in that was looking for someone to scare its patrons.

Burmeister said, “During ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,’ (Deutsch) had a chainsaw, took the chain off and would go in back of a car, start it up and come out with the chainsaw.”

“There were five girls in the car and when I ran that they piled out the other side,” Deutsch said.

And then there’s romance. “We have had two wedding proposals here,” Burmeister said. “We have another one coming up. I got an email from a guy and he asked if we would do it. Usually what I do is I’m upstairs and I read it and it goes over the speaker system. The one guy, they were in a pick-up and they stood up and I read it. I asked, ‘What if she says no?’ He says, ‘Then I’m embarrassed in front of a lot of people.’”

And those are just two of the great, fun anecdotes that the Daily Globe article covers. I shouldn’t even have to tell you that you should go read it!

Watch the Cottage View sign lovingly dismantled

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Oh, how I wish I could embed the really great video that the South Washington County (MN) Bulletin includes in its story of work crews dismantling the Cottage View Drive-In sign. Along with the projection equipment and the drive-in screen, the sign will be transported to Little Log House Pioneer Village in Hastings, where it will be restored and displayed.

According to the article, “Passersby on Highway 61 honked in solidarity of the beloved drive-in and little by little cars parked along East Point Douglas Road to watch the sign that had stood for more than 50 years come down.” There’s a lot more to read, and of course, you’ve just got to see that video, so go check it out!