Entry #440211, added on 07-13-06 @ 1:32 am EDT
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| Drive-In Movies ... | Entry #440211 |
SilverValkyre loves YOU!   and I were out cruising tonight on our way back from a little post-sundown excursion to the grocery store in our "new" rust and yellow Mercedes (I'll get to that in a minute or two) when the smell of cigarette smoke wafted in through the open sunroof and windows and reminded me of summer evenings spent at the drive-in movies when I was a kid ... the hot summer nights, the distant smell of cigarette smoke blended with the scent of the sultry night ... all that was missing was the popcorn and greasy curly fries--and the movie, of course.
The Mercedes is a vintage car Silver traded some work for at the legal office when our last vehicle was repossessed because we couldn't keep making the $600 a month (plus insurance) payment. It is more than twenty years old and runs well, although it sounds something like a thrashing machine and has no air conditioner. Actually, it has an air conditioner that supposedly works, but needs freon. The temperature was still hovering in the mid-nineties with humidity high and for a moment there, I was transported back to the old days of packing into the car and going out for an evening at the drive-in.
I loved those days. The best drive-in anywhere close to where I lived was in Monahans, Texas. I would go visit my Aunt Doris at every opportunity. She was the "old maid" of the family, so she loved my cousins (all six of them, her brother's kids) and me (her sister's only child) with a passion. She would gather us all up and take us to the drive-in and we would have the best time five or six or seven kids packed into a Ford Falcon can possibly have.
We would arrive early enough to get a good parking place and buy the first round of treats at the concession stand (usually hot dogs, fries and drinks), eat and make the usual stops in the restrooms before the first feature started around 9:30. Monahans was a small town, not really small enough to be a one-horse berg, but too small to have two horses. Don't let that fool you, though; the drive-in was the only "movie house" in town, so it was first rate. It ran all the best films and they were first runs.
Since the movies were always the best ones out at the time, we kids had to abide by the rule all trips to the concession stand and potty breaks were to take place before the first feature started and during the intermission between the two features. If anyone had an emergency pit stop to make ... well, I usually rose to the need.
Being an only child, I adored my cousins and the time I got to spend with them. Older than the oldest of them by six years, I was deemed to be responsible enough to accompany the youngsters to tend to their "business". It wasn't too bad. We were young and we would rush down to the restrooms at the concession stand, take care of the situation and hurry back to the car--after buying candy, popcorn, more drinks and whatever else we needed.
Then it was back to the car to finish watching the first movie. At intermission, we would pile out of the car and stretch our legs, take the kids to the playground and get more treats. And, of course, it was second potty break and back to the car for the second movie. Life was good ...
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