We’re still in a heat wave of sorts. It’s not as hellish as the south or the mid-west, but it is far too hot for us this time of year. I’m still inside where it’s cool. Later, though, I’ll have to venture out as I still need a few things for tonight.

Saturday night was drive-in movie night. We, of course, always wore our pajamas. I remember when I was around 5 or 6 and I left the car by myself to go the bathroom telling my parents I’d be fine. I found the bathroom but couldn’t find our car afterwards. I went up and down the rows getting more and more panicky. Finally I went to the concession stand. They announced me over the car speakers, and my dad came and rescued me. I was still young enough to feel relieved instead of embarrassed. My dad was an impatient man. The idea of waiting in a long line to exit the drive-in was totally unappealing so he’d get a head start on the traffic. We left before the movie was over. My father guessed at the end time, but I have no idea how close his guesses were. I just know I watched a silent movie as we left the drive-in.

By this time most Sundays, my dad would have packed up the car for the beach. That meant the tartan cooler, the picnic basket, the blanket, towels and shirts for sun protection. We didn’t have any sunscreen back then except for my mother who’d make us cover up before we got too burned. My mother was fastidious about keeping the sand off the blanket. She’d let us sit down as long as our feet were stretched out across the sand. During the day she was known to move everything off the blanket a few times so she could shake the sand off it because that blanket was where my mother perched the whole day except maybe for a walk on the beach in the afternoon with my sisters who wanted to look for shells, and on really hot days when she’d sometimes tip her toes into the ocean, but that was always as far in as she dared. We were the water bugs.

My dad worked a long week and often didn’t make it home for dinner. On summer Saturday mornings, he did errands and household chores like mowing the lawn, but the rest of the weekend he spent with us. Even though I never saw the movies end, I loved going to the drive-in and nothing was better than Sunday at the beach.