Hi! Thank you for requesting a review from me! I appreciate it! This is my first review so hopefully I will be able to provide something useful to you. I haven’t been writing for some time now and I have a lot to learn so please take this review with a grain of salt.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It’s warm and loving and definitely takes you back to simpler days. I was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s. My mom loved scary movies and I distinctly remember going to a drive-in, being very young, and watching something scary on the big screen. I think my eyes were covered so much, that I fell asleep by the time we returned home. Thanks for bringing that memory back. I could relate to other parts of it too and found it very funny at the end.

It is a really good story and I’m sure it made your dad happy to know you and your brothers have good childhood memories. It sounds like he loved your mom and all of you kids too!

It’s sad and a little painful to see places you lived, visited, knew so much about and have fond memories of change or disappear altogether. So, I know what you mean about that. But I guess, that’s the way it goes sometimes. That is why your advice to share memories with the ones we love is so good. I have grandchildren now and they really like hearing stories about my childhood. My dad told us all to make a record of what our lives were like for future generations. I’m more motivated now to do just that.

I also enjoyed your voice in this story. It feels casual, fun, and is grateful for the blessing of a good family.

You also set the scene well in the beginning being in traffic and looking out at areas that have changed so much from what they used to be and then that takes you back in memory to the way things were.

I do have some suggestions based on my experience reading this piece. It’s a lot, but I wanted to go over it as much as I could partly to learn from it and partly to see what you agree or disagree with. Please send me an email and let me know what you think.

Grammar and Mechanics:
Some punctuation and capitalization is missing.

Show the reader rather than tell the reader what is happening:

Show stuck in traffic> sat in a long line of cars
Show planning missions> taking out tanks and blowing up bridges
Show household budgeting> paying bills and saving money

The drive-in movie routine never varied> While my Dad prepped the car, my Mom would place the stove-top popcorn popper on the burner…

Our station wagon didn't have air-conditioning, so we'd roar off with the windows cranked down, the road noise drowning out the bickering for seating positions.> With all the windows open, we’d take off with the wind to cool down the car and the road noise to drown out the bickering for seating positions.

Once the bucket was full,> With popcorn overflowing and falling onto the floorboard, we'd pile into the station wagon,

Dad would buy one of those big “family-size” jugs of root beer, so we could head off on the final run, trying to get to the drive-in before sundown so we could play on the swing set and giant slide up near the screen, until the show started, or the bullies and mosquitoes ran us off.> Putting a family-size jug of root beer on the seat beside him, my Dad made haste to get to the drive-in so we could play before the sun went down. Once we rolled into a spot, my brothers and I jumped out of the car and ran up near the screen. We hopped on the swings and flew down the slide until the show started or the bullies and mosquitoes ran us off.

We couldn't really hear the window speaker, so the sound coming from the bullhorns below the movie screen added an eerie echo to the show.> From this forward position, my ears could not pick up much sound from the window speaker and the audio coming from the bullhorns below the movie screen created an eerie echo that bounced around us.

Word choices:
I had come back to visit> I was back to visit
Overlooking that dramatic change,> I put the altered landscape before me into the back of my mind, and thought instead of that time of innocence…

So many, like my dad, had put away the sabers of war to quietly take on those mundane duties required of the generation that populated the growing suburbs of the late fifties and early sixties.> So many, like my dad, laid down the sabers of war and picked up jobs, got married, had families and established roots in the growing suburbs of the late fifties and early sixties.

I would remove the word mundane as it sounds like it was a dreadful thing to exchange war for but probably preferred by most over the constant threat of death in war.

– all of the typical demands of raising children. Can delete since it is already implied in the above sentence

But with the courage born of their baptism by war, that generation set out to be victorious in a new theater through hard work and an undying faith in the future. And they were heroes, All.

My Dad flew many different aircraft…Throughout the piece, I would prefer to see references to your dad, as my dad… versus just dad…

What would happen after an early supper, is that Dad would hose off the station wagon> A trip like this would (lift off, blast off, get off the ground) after an early supper when my Dad would hose off the station wagon…

Then Dad had given that sigh and said,> With a sigh, he said, "Of course that had been when there were only two or three kids in the family."

But now the ice bucket was reserved for this summertime popcorn ritual> With seven kids, the ice bucket had to be re-assigned.

The next stop was the root beer stand, one with a big root beer mug rotating on the roof.

Dad always insisted that the root beer was “fresh-brewed in that mug," but> my brothers and I protested that claim every time. It was just a painted sheet-metal tank with a stove-pipe handle.

Our youngest brother had stayed in the car on the sleeping bags spread across the folded down back seat. But now he scrambled forward into Dad's lap for safety.> I looked back at my dad for reassurance and noticed my youngest brother who initially stayed in the car on the sleeping bags spread across the folded down back seat had managed to scramble forward into my dad’s lap.

Point of View: Stay with single point of view.

But our neighbors knew Dad was a hero...> I began to suspect my neighbors saw him as a hero too, of a different sort, whenever the first warm Saturday night rolled around after school was out for the summer and the "drive-in run" was coming.

On the bumper we gasped...> My brothers and I let out a gasp in unison…

In the car our youngest brother must have pushed away from the steering wheel in fright.> My little brother screeched and thrashed about inside the car.

Now, when someone sits on a car bumper watching a horror movie, they are only inches away from a horn that is activated by someone pushing or kicking the steering wheel hub... our feet didn't wait to find the source of that sudden blaring sound - they just started running!> With that said, all six pairs of feet below me didn’t wait to find the source of the sudden blaring and piercing sound that surged through the air. Like a shot, they took off running wild through the terrain of parked cars and spooked-out movie goers.

Imagery:
Some imagery is used but not always where it could be. Here is one sentence that could be re-written as such:

His cool to the touch medals and multi-colored ribbons were kept in his sock drawer and my brothers and I often boasted about our dad being a war hero.

I responded in a greater way to these times in the story when vivid language was used:
Sabers of war
Courage born of their baptism by war
Banshees
Wailing harbingers of doom
Bullies and mosquitoes ran us off
The night was sweltering
Heat radiated from the gravel hillocks of the drive-in
shudder and strain against the clinking chains wrapped around it

Once again, I really enjoyed your story. I shared it with my husband and he also rode around in a station wagon growing up. It was fun to go back to that time. Keep Writing!

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .