Day 1 - October 1st 2014 - Welcome to the party!

Welcome!

This is the first entry of 30 for the month of October.  I write this with a 101.5 fever.  I know what you are going to say - save it.  You don’t have to tell me (Note:  Read Brenda Ueland’s If You Want To Write, and Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art).  But here’s the thing, William Blake once said and believed and I whole-heartedly agree with him, “Writing cures sickness”.  For some it may be photography, or it could be singing or dancing.  Whatever evokes the muse and at the same time brings a person closer to their bliss.

The act itself is not free from effort.  Sometimes it feels like tearing duct tape from hairy arms.  But, the choice is always one’s own.  To do or not to do.  Nor is walling off the time to do such ventures easy.  But, these are the reasons why we are here, our dharma.

Entry #1 October 1st.

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There is a perfectly unique smell when pulling into a drive-in theater.  Gravel and dust mixed with a grove of trees, humid summer air, popcorn and hotdogs grilling.  The aroma can only be described as innocence and a year - 1978.  Some of my favorite memories are from when we used to go to the drive-in.

Clarke’s Submarine sandwiches, sleeping bags, pillows, baseball mitts.  It was like we packed to stay overnight in a hotel, or were planning a camping weekend.  Can’t forget the aged green cooler full of drinks and snacks.

I have vague to nonexistent memory of the actual movies.  Jaws, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but these memories are most likely filled with my own creative memory.  What I do remember though is a rather faint ghostlike reflections through hundreds of windshields, the cadence of the show echoing through the metallic cylon window attachments.  The smell of popcorn and candy at the refreshment stand; but the greatest was the intermission countdown reel.  Candy bars and soda pops dancing through a 70’s grainy film - 10 minutes tell showtime.  These little trippy fellows have shown up in my dreams and desires for years since I last went to a drive-in.

I wouldn’t really make it through to the second movie.  Usually I would be asleep partially during the first but I tried with a ll my might to make it.  See, these were the best memories I have of the family before the divorce.  A nostalgic American past time bathed in something sweet and special.

These were the years when I was 5 through 10.  I have many happy memories of my family in these years.  It wasn’t long before these would become the best memories.  The drive-in memories are pure.

The Drive-in was my Americana.

I heard on the radio - I believe it was NPR, a resurgence of the Drive-in.  Original speakers were being repaired and replaced and the parks in general were renovating.  There isn’t many places you can go, spend $30.00 and have several hours of fun.  At least, that is what the radio spot focused on.  Now, as I have come to the age of my father when we used to go to the drive-in, I look forward to the opportunity to do the same with my kids.  It can’t ever be the same as 1978, nor will I try and mimic the old- and that is okay.  But I hope to capture something of the feeling of how cool it was and at the same time create new amazing memories and stories for my kids.

One night late in my memory banks, we stopped at the ranch to see the horses before going to the drive-in.  We had two Tennessee walkers - Toad and Lady.  Dad and I always rode Toad and Mom and Chris always rode Lady.

The running ring was not very busy on this one evening.  I sat and played with the dirt.  The ranch horses had stomped and repeatedly crushed the dirt to a graphite like powder.  It was amazing.  As a kid, I could play with it for hours.  I would sift in the dirt from one hand to the other and it was like playing with smoke.  

Toad didn’t like what I was doing.  I know it seems crazy in retrospect, but there was no doubt in my mind that I knew exactly what Toad’s eyes were saying to me.  He looked at me and bobbed his head.  I could tell it bothered him.  So I continued to do it.  I was at a distance of about thirty feet or more.  I wasn’t that close.  I continued to let the dirt fall through my fingers all the while staring at him - taunting him, saying inside my head - “What are you going to do about it.”

And then, like a bolt of lightning Toad ran at me full speed.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  My small body looking up at this movement of legs and body coming straight for me.  I tucked my head under my arms and pulled my legs into my chest waiting for the beating of my life.

The wind came first and then the sound like a rolling thunder that was coming closer and closer.  I kept tucked in my ball as I felt his feet roar over me.  Toad Trampled me!  

Now it was miracle I was alive, but really Toad knew I was teasing him.  He called my bluff.  But I have no idea how but of the 12 looking legs that were bearing down me, not a single foot, nor hoof nor leg touched me.  He galloped over me with a cloud of dust smoke.  He scared the ever living shit out of me but he never hurt me.  My Dad picked me up and took me to the van running at full speed.  When he laid me down all I could say was I’m sorry.  I was so sorry for upsetting Toad.  For teasing him, I am so sorry, I repeated over and over.  Because it was my fault.  And, all I really needed to know was whether we could still go to the drive-in?