Purple Haze
A summer landmark
By Lauren Bagian

April 30, 2009

The hot breeze hits your face like a blast furnace and it’s carrying a delightful aroma. Smelling the delicious fried goodness of simple potatoes becoming something extraordinary once they hit the bubbling oil, you feel your stomach grumble. The crowd at the snack bar doesn’t matter too much because the line stretching out the door allows to you keep up with the movie’s dialogue playing on countless surrounding cars. Such are the simple joys of a summer night in Dillsburg.

I remember going to the Haar’s Drive-In when I was much younger and begging for my parents to take me over to the big metal slide and swing-set across the lot so I could use up all of my energy before the movies started. Doing so caused me to always be too exhausted to stay awake through the second film, but that didn’t matter because I was always much more interested in the animated Disney movie that was played first. When I was a little older, I would come with my best friend’s family, and despite the fact that we hardly watched the movie while we tossed around a football, talked and wrestled for the best bag of Flavor-Blasted Goldfish, I still had a glorious time.

As a teenager, Haar’s has been a relatively cheap way to get all of my friends together on the weekend outside of the house enjoying ourselves instead of watching movies indoors. Who cares if we’ve already seen the picture that’s playing three times; we haven’t seen it sitting in our cars yet. That’s as far as I have gotten up the Haar’s Drive-In ladder of experiences and I hope that it’s around long enough for my children to enjoy it, as well as my grandchildren.

Joining Farmer’s Fair and the Pickle Drop, Haar’s Drive-In Theater is one of those things that is unique to Dillsburg. We have to keep these monuments of Central Pennsylvania culture alive so that the generations after our own will have them to enjoy. Dillsburg isn’t just another small town; we have so much more to offer here. Haar’s is opening for the summer this weekend and will be showing X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Taken, both rated PG-13. Please keep the list of Dillsburg’s distinctive community events long.