Meadow Drive-In

I grew up in southern New Jersey, where the first drive-in movie screen was built. A true summer treat, you could ride there at dusk in the back of your parents’ station wagon in your pajamas, and during a good Disney double feature, pass out with the crickets as company.

Now I live in Pennsylvania, and I don’t know of any drive-ins that exist anymore. But we have a great meadow on a low hill in Valley Forge National Park that we like to drive up to at dusk on summer evenings. We pull up, park, open the windows, stick our bare feet out, and watch the show. Swallows - in their navy blue tuxedo jackets with white dress shirts - swoop and swerve, criss-crossing all across the field, over the car and up overhead against the pink and gray sky, catching their evening bug snacks. The red-winged blackbirds call out cheerily as they finish up their day’s business before retiring. Thrushes, orioles and bluebirds wing by, returning at last to their nests for the night.

The sky grows darker, and the air dampens and wafts across the field, carrying with it the sweet smell of sun-baked grasses. Crickets and cicadas began to warm up for their evening concert. The meadow dims, and one small light flashes gently, then another, and finally the whole field is filled with tiny fairy lanterns, flashing on and off in the darkness.

Like the drive-ins, there are few true meadows left anymore. Most of our land has been developed into houses and shopping centers, lawns and soccer fields. We treasure this meadow in the daytime, taking walks and enjoying all of its inhabitants. But we really like to be there for its always-entertaining evening show. We just don’t wear our pajamas. And at least one of us stays awake to drive home.