Some of my best memories as a kid and a teenager live in the glow of summer nights at the drive‑in.  In the late ’70s, my big sister would swing by home, or Happy Hills Campground, to pick me up in her green Dodge Dart – later the Aspen — to go to “the show” in Stratford. Without fail, Ronnie Milsap was blaring from her 8‑track. 

To this day, I can’t ever hear him without thinking of her. I was 8 or 9 then and she was 20 or 21.

I remember watching Grease and Corvette Summer — Google says likely 1978 — lying back against the windshield in a makeshift blanket fort my sister had built on the hood of her car. Over the years I saw a million other drive‑in classics — with various friends and family and later with our kids – all of us tucked into that analog world where connection didn’t need to be curated or captured. It just happened. You just sat beside each other in the dark, and it made for a great night. 

Remember?

Being carried into the house half‑asleep after a double feature, pretending to stay limp so you wouldn’t have to walk; buttery popcorn and greasy fingers; hot dogs pulled from the warmer with that metallic steam that hit your face; the heavy speaker hanging in the window, crackling its imperfect sound into the night; then that moment when the lights came on at the end — people stretching, kids rubbing their eyes — the whole place shifting from dream to real life in a single flood of brightness. Glorious. 

It’s a shame drive‑ins are mostly gone now. Those nights gave us so much more than we ever knew we were getting at the time. We didn’t know we were in the last era where you could be unreachable. That we would soon lose the ability to be together without distraction. Without glowing screens between us. Without the constant hum of everything happening everywhere. 

As we drove past the gravelled over old drive-in lot in Owen Sound today,  I remembered those times. Tonight would have been an “all-nighter” — four shows for the long weekend. 

I wonder how we’ll know when we’re down to the last drive-in in the world. (What an absolute travesty that will be.) The last drive-in. Still analog. Still a place to slow down. Still a place to sit in the dark and remember who we were. 

The Last Drive-In

The lot

where the old drive-in used to be

is a time machine now,

and maybe a lighthouse. 

A wide-open wallet of sky

where yesterday gets screened; 

coming alive again

in grainy, heart- flicker flames.

I drive by and imagine

people travelling

from all over the world

to sit in their cars

and watch films

made of their own past.

Engines off.

Hearts on.

The ghosts of who you were

queued at the concession stand

ordering popcorn.

Nostalgia taps you on the shoulder

to ask:

‘Are you willing to look again?’

Before a ghost projector,

sputters to life

casting all the versions

you ever were—

on-screen constellations

arranging themselves into all

the ‘would-have-beens,’

and ‘God-I-remember-thats’—

all of the surprise

and awe

and misery of a life

spelling out the truth

you missed

the first time around. 

Each memory stepping forward

like a shy understudy

finally getting her moment on stage.

But this time

when the credits roll,

you let the past

be a visitor

instead of a judge.