A TOMB WITH A VIEW
What family entertainment was readily at hand,
well before the internet and Netflix were in demand?
A dream it would be to have kids all bathed and in jammies,
and still watch a movie with friends Ruth, Jill or Sammy?
In 1940 the Fort Wayne Drive-In made this no longer a dream.
The kids would not trouble others no matter how loud they’d scream!
Only pennies a carload, no babysitters needed,
bed-times extended or at times, not even heeded.
Standing as a not so majestic symbol of Waynedale for 45 years,
the big screen’s demolition in 1985 came with cheers more than tears.
Movies had gravitated from plain family fare to just plain old scary
Not the original intent of the tombstone seats from the “Prairie.”
The fence could not get much higher and wider you see,
sandwiched between Highway 1 and the cemetery.
Who needed sound with screen so big and picture so bright?
We knew what was said in the dark of the night.
My first and last experience at the Fort Wayne Drive-in movie,
had 8 of us crammed in an Oldsmobile rag-top, how “groovy”.
This was a time long ago and far from Jaws or Grizzly,
certainly before Star Wars Jedi’s were bought out by Disney.
The movie was called “Rattlers”, not many will remember,
1976, a warm night in August or maybe September.
Crowded on laps you’d get pinched or on top you’d get bug-bitten,
now this was true “social media”, no matter where you were sittin’.
> Read Full Biography
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