Walking down memory lane

Maybe it’s an age thing, but more and more I find little things that trigger memories from my childhood.

That was the case this week when someone mentioned the old Rio Drive-In. Those of you of a certain age will surely remember pulling up to the post holding the speaker and fussing with the window to get it just right and then having to play with the volume until the scratchy audio was loud enough for everybody in the car to hear.

I have vivid memories of seeing every Elvis movie at the drive-in with my mom. She was a huge Elvis fan and as a kid, all I wanted to do was grow up to be in an Elvis movie. Yeah, I’m a musical nerd.

We would pop our own popcorn using an old-fashioned popper on the stove. You had to stand there and turn the little green, wooden knob on the top to stir the corn, making sure you didn’t burn it. And melted butter. Real butter.

I can still smell the bag we loaded our treats in for a trip to the movies.

I have no idea where it came from, but it was a dark blue bag with a sailing motif. Living in a land-locked state, I can’t imagine how we ended up with a sailing bag.

Two 16 ounce bottles of Pepsi and we were on our way.

Top down on mom’s 442 Oldsmobile convertible, warm air, popcorn and Elvis.

It didn’t get any better than that.