Times
of Uncle Ernest -
Chesapeake City and Beyond
Chapter 3
Certain times in life are special times, Nina. Let me tell
you about a few other happenings that occurred in the forties, when life in Cecil County Chesapeake City
You know how it is after the sun goes down yet the light
still lingers? Well, it was one of those early spring evenings, when the chill
replaces the sun’s warm beams and you’re cold all of a sudden. But before
running outside that evening, I had been watching television for a while with
my grandmother. The TV set was one of the first to come on the market. It was a
large box full of tubes the size of large salt shakers. The programs were all
in black and white in those early days, and the screen, about 8 or 9 inches
square, was always distorted in some way, usually with “snow” blurring your
view.
Every couple of weeks, when the set broke down, my father
would take the back off, pull out most of the vacuum tubes, and take them to an
electronics' shop in Elkton to be tested. If the tubes were not the problem, he
would have to call the TV repairman, who usually took several days to show up.
At any rate, we had had the set for about a year, and that
evening my grandmother was seated on the edge of her rocker, with her body
thrust forward from the left side of the set and her face six inches from the
screen. She was watching “The Cisco Kid,” one of the first cowboy shows to air
on TV. Often she would comment on the action: “Watch out! There he is behind
that tree. Be careful. Oh, he’s no good!” She was captured—taken prisoner—by
those early shows.
And that was a strange thing for my young mind to figure
out, Nina, because a year earlier my grandmother would not even look at the TV set. It was a frightening
oddity, a near impossibility to her who had lived so many years without it. At
first she would go upstairs to her room whenever it was turned on. Then, one
early evening, I saw her seated at the top of the stairs, peering across the
room at the TV from under the banister railing, with her head up against the
white banister posts. As the months went by I noticed that she would move
closer and closer to the set until, finally, after about a year’s time, her
eyes would be several inches from it.
Now, Nina, as I started to tell you earlier, before TV
interrupted, I had run outside on that one special evening at sunset, that one
special spring evening that still scurries around the halls of my brain, stops,
and stamps its feet for my attention when I’m least expecting it. The sun had
dropped below Annie Boyko’s woods, yet patches of warm light still shone on
parts of our hillside farm. Wiggsey and I played in it—moved with its
warmth—until it dissolved into the ground, leaving us in the chilled shadow of
evening. Looking farther up the hill towards the garden, I watched the last
patch of its brilliance disappear.
Even Wiggsey felt the loss. He was a big, Chesapeake Bay
Retriever, and when I looked back at him he had flopped himself down onto a
bare area that he had scratched out next to his box. He lay, feet and tail
folded under him, in a complete circle, a perfect curve to his body, with his
muzzle resting on the trunk of his tail to form a blended oval. I was surprised
that a dog’s spine could curl that much. Nina, he was a brown donut with eyes,
a black-button nose, and moveable ears that twitched when I whistled through my
teeth.
As far as television was concerned, by the time I was a
teenager it had not improved very much. Better forms of entertainment, when I
was not much younger than you, were our Rio Theater on George Street North Street
But when I was a teenager—before I got my license and
after—the drive-in was the place to be for fun. Before we boys—my friends in
the area—started dating girls, we would get together with a guy who was old
enough to have his licenses and access to a car. Then five or six of us would
all pile into the car and head for the Elkton Drive-In. It was located where
the WalMarts is now, Nina, and the road that led to it from Route 213, Whitehall Road
Well, we would swerve onto that road, sometimes fishtailing
as we spun around the curves, and when we got to the edge of the drive-in area,
the driver would stop and we would all get out. The outside edge of the
drive-in area on the 213 side was a strip of land overgrown with saplings,
bushes, and other undergrowth that hid the drive-in parking lot from view.
Well, the driver would go to the ticket booth, pay for his ticket, and go in
and park with the other cars.
In the meantime, we boys would sneak around the hidden
boundary to the very back of the drive-in. From there, which was directly
underneath the enormous white screen, we would enter into a small playground
area, mingle with the legal patrons, and eventually find our buddy’s car so we
could watch the movie in comfort.
I make this sound pretty easy, Nina, but there’s something I
forgot to tell you. The owners knew, somehow, that some people were sneaking in,
so they had a man in a jeep riding around the edge of that overgrown area
looking for intruders with a spotlight. Many a time, as I snuck through the
briars and honeysuckle, I saw that beam of light flashing. So I had to dive to
the ground or jump behind a tree. It was sure scary, but that made it more fun
and, of course, it made the free movie that much more enjoyable.
How can I explain the enchantment of that drive-in theater?
I wish you could have experienced it, Nina. As you steered your car up next to
the ticket booth, you could hear the music from the loudspeaker and see the
suspended screen high in the distance. You’d then cruise around the lot,
checking things out and looking for a good place to park, not too close nor too
far from the screen and fairly close to the refreshment building. You’d pull
into your spot close enough to the pole that held a small, metal speaker. You’d
hang the speaker on the door, adjust the volume, settle back, and wait for the
show that darkness would bring.
You had the whole evening ahead of you in the privacy of
your car—entertainment in comfort and seclusion. There you were, out-of-doors
with the windows down, and maybe a breeze would stir through your car, cooling
you and making you feel as if you were on top of the world. Then, abruptly, the
show would begin: first an ad about the available food and drink, then the
coming attractions, then the cartoon, and finally the movie. Time would go by
so fast that soon you’d start your engine, turn on your lights, and get in line
to begin what seemed like a long exit.
Now, Nina, if you want to know about taking dates to the
drive-in, that’s another story. When I got my driver’s license at sixteen and
started dating your grandmother, I had to pay
to get in the drive-in. For some reason she would have balked at the fun of
sneaking in—not that I asked her to; I was
smarter than that. However, Nina, I need to tell you about a problem I had with
her. I, naturally, was always interested in watching the movies. They showed
great ones, such as “Tarantula,” about a giant spider whose favorite food was
humans, and “The Hand,” about a murderer’s severed hand that came alive and
started strangling people.
Anyway, as I said, I wanted to watch the shows but, do you
know, all your granny wanted to do was smooch. That’s right, and it was awfully
hard on me. Geez, the windshield would get all steamed up so that I couldn’t
see the screen. I recall wiping off the inside of the windshield with the palm
of my hand. But it was no good; it would fog up again in no time. In fact, all the windows would steam up from her
romancing. The only break I got was at intermission, when I could get out to
catch my breath and visit the refreshment shack to load up on hot-dogs, French
fries, and sodas. Then the movie would resume and it all started again. But,
obviously, I survived, Nina, and after all these years I’m glad to be able to
tell you about it.
I think now of the changes: my granny’s gone, Wiggsey’s
gone, and the drive-in’s gone. Your
granny and I still watch movies, fogged over now with drowsiness instead of
condensation. And the sun still descends on special evenings, leaving us bereft
of light, just as it did so many years ago, when Wiggsey coiled within himself,
mourning the loss of its warmth. [To be continued Tuesday, 5/01/2012]
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