3 Word Wednesday LXIV

Welcome to Three Word Wednesday. Each week, I will post three (or more) words. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write something using all of those words. It can be a few lines, a story, a poem, anything.

Leave a comment if you participate. Many fun and interesting people might visit your blog.

This week’s words are:
Closing
Headlights
Virtual

I would have been first in line for tickets to the last show ever at the Twilight Drive-In Theater, had there been a line. Ten minutes before the movie was scheduled to begin, and the lot looked more like the movie had been over for ten minutes.

Though I suppose it didn’t have any direct effect on me one way or the other, I found myself disappointed that more people hadn’t come. Did people not care that the Twilight was closing? Didn’t anyone realize what this place had meant to me and thousands of others?

Then I felt guilty. I hadn’t been to a movie here in fifteen years. I was as much to blame for its closing as anyone. The Twilight never managed to get any current movies, or lately even many decent ones. But there was a time when that didn’t matter. Coming to the drive-in was more about the atmosphere, being free from the folks, socializing and soaking up the evening air. The movie itself was almost superfluous.

In its heyday, the Twilight Drive-In was the place to be on weekends. It was a familiar and expected sight back then to see cars lined up in a long train of headlights, stretching from the ticket booth back well out onto the road. The Twilight was also known for having the best burgers in all of Cook County. The whole concession stand was great. It was like eating at the fair, except year round.

During my late teens, it was a virtual certainty you would find me there every Saturday night. At the drive-in, that is. There were first dates, hoping the movie would last just a little longer, affording me a few more minutes to work up a bit more courage to kiss her. There were not first dates, not noticing the movie was over, being the last car to leave, affording me just a few more minutes to kiss her.

I wasn’t sure what I missed most about those days, I just knew I missed them. Those days when sneaking thru the gate in the trunk of a car was about the worst thing I or any of my friends ever did. The Twilight represented my life then. And soon it would be torn down. I felt like I was losing a friend, and I was sad that so few people had shown up for the funeral.

I was halfway thru my first Twilight burger when the screen came on, and I realized I had no idea what movie was showing. Not that it mattered.

“Making our love with the moon above at the drive-in picture show. It was burgers and fries and cherry pies in a world we used to know…”