a poet

i've told this story a thousand times before when i was a wee lad i loved i still love the drive-ins seeing movies in open air in our cars under the stars is magic so there was Mather Auto Movies named after the nearby air force base now long shuttered but when in operation that AFB was home to B-52 bombers loaded with nuclear weapons we were under no illusions we knew during the Cold War that Mather AFB was on the scopes of the CCCP & if nuclear war erupted my beloved city of Sac would be glassed so it was a summer night at Mather Auto Movies which closed down in 1976 my father & i were walking back to our car after getting goodies at the snack bar like i said it was a hot night which is not unusual summer weather for Sac when the air feels like dry tinder & the ground soaked up all the sun rays it can to radiate back that dry heat when sometimes you can look up at the night sky watching drive-in movies & see a B-52 on patrol loaded with nuclear bombs my father & i returning to our car in the summer night heat laden with candy & sodas from the snack bar we had to pass the projection booth which was a little building right in the center of the drive-in it was a very hot night the door of the projection booth was open i peered in & i saw the projectionist an older guy seated on a broken green La Z Boy recliner reading a big fat novel & i thought that was the best job ever for a poet & tho i did not become a drive-in theater projectionist it was right then i knew what i wanted to do with my life