Friday, June 15, 2007

Remembering times past

A year ago today we scattered my parents' ashes in Estes Park, Colorado, in a little pine grove facing the Mummy Range -- the view they loved for years when they'd visit Daddy's aunt's cabin. Sixty-one years ago today, they were married in Duluth, Minn. I miss them. I think of their life together, their fun, their great love for each other, and I am aware again of the great wheel of life turning slowly, cycles of life moving ahead, day by day, on and on, era by era.

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Tonight we saw "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" at our local old classic State Theatre, and it was fun to remember what we were doing when it first came out in 1977.

That led to reminiscences about drive-in movies -- which I suppose really dates us -- and what fun they were. I remember going when I was a kid. My folks liked station wagons, so we'd have a little nest of blankets and pillows in the back. We never got snacks at the snack bar, although I always envied those piles of french fries, hot dogs off the rolling grill, and sodas -- (and when I was grown and actually could choose to purchase snacks there, I was so disappointed!) We'd have lemonade or water or maybe Kool Aid in a thermos, bags of popcorn, stacks of homemade cookies, maybe a sandwich that we'd bring in our handy thermal pack.

When R was little in the late '70s and early '80s, we'd go to a nearby drivein in the Indianapolis area in our 1946 classic Chevrolet, take snacks, pillows, blankets, and watch movies in the warm Indiana summer evenings. It was life before home theaters, and VCRs, DVDs.

That's one of the reasons I think we like the movie nights at the State. The old-fashioned setting recalls simpler times and special nights out. (The movies are monthly -- next month is "Grease," with a much younger John Travola and Oliva Newton John. Of course we'll probably sing along...)

It was a nice end to a few days of more-than-usual stresses.

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