24 United States The EconomistAugust 1st 2020
T
he giantmovie screen at Bengies was illuminated by a thrill-
ing golden sunset when the cinema’s owner and compere, D.
Edward Vogel, began reciting the house rules one recent Friday
evening. It was dark before he had finished.
Bengies, a drive-in outside Baltimore, does not allow alcohol,
profanity, car-horns or headlights—which seemed reasonable. It
also bans barefoot children (even when carried), photography, ve-
hicles left unoccupied without an explanatory note, and refunds
or ticket changes of any kind, which seemed a bit over the top.
“This is not an exclusive list of our rules, but it’s a pretty good
start,” said Mr Vogel, as the sky darkened over the 120-foot-long
movie screen. He still hadn’t got through his covid-19 stipulations.
Mr Vogel, whose uncle started Bengies in 1956, says its rules are
necessary because many of his patrons are new to drive-ins (of
4,000 fresh-air theatres in 1958, fewer than 400 remain). But this
was not true of the families setting out chairs and speakers around
Lexington and his tribe. From Pennsylvania, Virginia and far-flung
Maryland, they were Bengies habitués. They came for its giant
screen, grandiose playing of the anthem and unreconstructed
snack bar selling Bengies cola, foot-long hot dogs and much more.
They revelled in its eccentricity. The drive-in is named after a 19th-
century president, Benjamin Harrison, and known for the snarky
messages on its neon billboard. Best of all they loved the juxtaposi-
tion of electronic entertainment and hot night air.
These virtues were also apparent to first-timers. Like time-trav-
elling Michael J. Foxes, your columnist and his family found the
drive-in at once novel and deeply familiar. The experience has
been depicted in a thousand films. More acutely, the same combi-
nation of mid-century technology, bossiness and cheesy family-
mindedness is still remarkably common. America is suffused with
the culture of the 1950s. The pandemic, which has inspired pop-up
drive-ins around the country, has made this even more evident.
The fact that theme parks and bowling alleys have been con-
spicuous victims of the economic shutdown has underscored how
popular they remain. Disney World’s winning struggle to reopen
in plague-ridden Florida this month was a major economic event.
Fast food, another 1950s signature, is similarly pre-eminent, and
the coronavirus has re-emphasised its most iconic form, the ham-burgerservedtothecar-window.McDonald’s, America’s favourite
restaurant now as then, collected 70% of its revenues from drive-
thrus even before the pandemic made them more popular.
Pent up in suburbia, where a third of Americans lived in 1960
and over half live today, families have been rediscovering the 1950s
combination of board games before the kids go to bed and cock-
tails afterwards (and sometimes before; unless that is a British ver-
sion). Sales of Scrabble—patented in 1948—and liquor are through
the roof. With flying not advised, many are also taking vintage
holidays. Lexington is currently on a family road-trip in New Eng-
land, an undertaking synonymous with the 1950s, which also
helps explain why the decade’s culture is so enduring.
Millions made for America’s beaches and parks back then, be-
cause they suddenly had the means to do so: 1950 was the first year
the average household owned a car. The country’s two most fam-
ous bears, Smokey, a wildfire-orphaned cub who became a sensa-
tion in 1950, and Yogi, who hit televisions in 1958, were also allur-
ing. And whereas citizens of drearier rich countries have been
liberated by foreign holidays, Americans’ vast backyard remains
too wonderful to be supplanted. Americans are much less likely to
travel abroad than rich Asians or Europeans—not only, or mostly,
because they are afraid to, but because they don’t need to.
This rationale has helped preserve the recreational culture of
the 1950s. It is especially evident in the state parks that have pro-
vided an alternative to shuttered pools this summer. Generally
smaller, more accessible and more crowded than national parks,
many were converted from forestry land around the 1950s. And
they retain, with their roped-off swimming lakes and pedalos, a
distinctive mid-century feel. After a summer of surveying America
from such vintage vantages, your columnist has these reflections.
Unfavourable comparisons between America now and in its
golden decade of capitalism are understandable. Yet 1950s nostal-
gists should find comfort in the decade’s cultural endurance. That
goes beyond board games. The warm civic-mindedness Ameri-
cans exude in their mid-century pursuits recalls that confident
time. When your columnist’s neighbours at Bengies discovered it
was his children’s first trip to a drive-in, they bought them a cele-
bratory ice-cream. That would not happen in a video arcade.
Nostalgists should also consider two cautionary points. First,
as per Bengies’ rules, the 1950s was a hectoring time. For all its
thrust and novelty, there was usually someone telling you what to
do. The suburbs were an experiment in social engineering. House-
wives there were bombarded with home economics, their teen-
agers with “mental-hygiene films”. Americans would not submit
to that today because they are freer. (Though it would be good if
they would submit to wearing face-masks, as you must at Bengies.)Back to the future
Second, many Americans were barred from the 1950s cultural
treats because of their skin colour. Cinemas were segregated in the
South until the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. So were
many state parks. When Sandy Point, a small beach on Chesapeake
Bay, opened in 1952, it was the only one in Maryland available to Af-
rican-Americans. And they could use only a scruffy corner of it.
When your (white) columnist and his family visited the teem-
ing beach this summer, they were in the minority. It is now a mag-
net for Hispanic families from Prince George’s County and black
ones from Baltimore. Hip-hop and salsa fight it out above the
multilingual, multiracial throng. All things considered, 1950s
America is better now than it was in the original. 7Lexington Mid-century modern
Americans should stop harking back to the 1950s. Many of the decade’s delights are still available