When I was about six years old, my mother and a friend of hers took me and Giles with them to see a drive-in movie. Giles and I saw each other at least once a week, even though we lived about 15 miles apart. Our dads had been stationed together in the air force, and continued their friendship into civilian life.
Friday night was poker night, and our mothers, wishing to escape the serious male bonding going on in the dining room, what with all the smoking, drinking, and general debauchery that went on, used it as a girls’ night out. That usually meant putting me and Giles to bed while they went out on their own, so that we could annoy our dads by getting up, wandering into the dining room, and being greeting with a “Why aren’t you in bed?”
Drive-in movies, however, were different. You drove your car, sometimes paying one admission for the whole carload, and kids could sleep in the back of the car or go to a playground that many drive-ins had. They were basically a parking lot that faced a giant movie screen, except the parking spaces were arranged so that the front wheels were elevated a bit. Between every other car was a pole that held two clunky loudspeakers, connected by wire, so that they could each reach to the window of the neighboring car. Behind all the cars was a concession stand, which sold the usually nutritious snacks that one always enjoys at movies, along with perhaps the most important commodity of all — the mosquito coil, which was a piece of incense that was shaped like the element of an electric range. It was supposed to repel mosquitoes. It sort of worked.
Giles’ mother drove a 1963 white Thunderbird hardtop. Sitting in the back seat, as I often did, wasn’t the best, but a few times I got to ride shotgun, and the front seats were like a cockpit. The steering wheel was a SwingAway, which, when the car was in Park, would swing to the right, out of the driver’s way. I was very disappointed to learn that they no longer have that car. They traded it in on an Oldsmobile Toronado! Giles and I had lost touch when our families both moved away, and didn’t reconnect until last year.
That night at the drive-in, we didn’t need a mosquito coil. It had started raining, and it somehow morphed into this big electrical storm that persisted. Giles and I both asked if we couldn’t go home, but our mothers, being the thrifty sort, hated to leave the movie after having paid for it. When it got so bad that the only way to watch the movie was with the windshield wipers, they decided it was time to cut their losses and head home.
During the drive home, the lightning strikes were frequent and close. Very close. In one simultaneous instant, the outside of the car was bright as daylight, and the loudest, crackling boom deafened us. Giles’ mother, who had rested her left arm on the windowsill, felt it get hot. We had been struck by lightning. Of course, we were fine, Giles’ mother continued driving home. The car was even fine. But I had an irrational fear of lightning for most of my childhood.
The takeaway is this: If lightening looms, the best place for you to be is inside a 1963 Ford Thunderbird hardtop. If one isn’t handy, any other steel-roofed car will suffice. Giles and I are living proof.
