The Silvermoon Drive-In, Part 2

Fiction By July 13, 2017 Tags:

The Silvermoon Drive-In: An Oral History

An email from William (“Bill”) Barry, friend of Robert (“Bobby”) Nowicki, co-owner of the Silvermoon Drive-In from 1993 until it’s closure in 2006.

Jess,

Your mom tells me you’re working on some kind of history report on the Silvermoon for a class you’re taking at PSU. [Material removed]. You want to know what I remember Bobby saying about the drive-in, right? I don’t remember much, but okay.

Bobby had some kind of unusual financial arrangement with Dan Novak, that much I do remember. I think Dan saw the writing on the wall and was happy to unload the place. Anyway, Bobby was still teaching when he first took over operations.

Interviewer’s Note: Bobby Novak worked at Amhurst Junior High School as a social studies teacher for 23 years. He served as general manager of the Silvermoon for two summers as a part-owner during his last two years of employment as a teacher before taking full ownership of the theater.

He took an early retirement from the school as soon as they put one on the table. He used the lump sum he got to finish paying off Dan. Doreen didn’t like that, but she went along. That drive-in was Bobby’s dream and he was happy for a few years. They made some improvements to the place. It did okay for what it was, but nobody was getting rich off a drive-in theater by then, if they ever did.

You asked about Connie, too, and I have even less to say about him. He was a weird old guy and he never fit in and he never tried. Something about him bothered me from the get-go, but he always did right by Bobby and Doreen, as far as I know.

-Bill

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The Silvermoon Drive-In, Part 1

Fiction By July 13, 2017 Tags:

The Silvermoon Drive-In: An Oral History

Partial transcript of an interview with Doreen Nowicki, co-owner of the Silvermoon Drive-In from 1993 until it’s closure in 2006.

Doreen:
So, let me see here. What can I say about Con?

Interviewer:
Other than the black suit?

[Laughter]

Doreen:
Yeah, yeah, the suit. [Pause]. It was blue, actually. Not that it matters at all. But everyone thought it was black because they only saw it at night. But it was a real dark blue.

And I remember because he wore it when he come in for the interview. And I remember thinking, that’s a little, uh, overdone for an interview for a projectionist, you know.

Um. So, I was surprised when he wore it to work.

Interviewer:
And then he wore it every night?

Doreen:
Oh yeah, every night.

Interviewer:
Do you know why?

Doreen:
Um. Well, I never asked him, but. [Pause]. He was just so serious all the time, you know? About everything.

Interviewer:
So, he didn’t laugh or joke around?

Doreen:
No, no, no. I don’t mean like that. He had a good sense of humor once you got to know him . Real dry. [Pause].

But, I guess I just mean, he took what he was doing seriously. He treated it like it was real important, even if it was, like, the dumbest movie you ever saw.

Interviewer:
Did he have a day job somewhere?

Doreen:
Not that I know of, nope.

Interviewer:
Then how did he make ends meet? I mean, I assume he wasn’t making enough at the drive-in…

Doreen:
Nah, what we paid him couldn’ta been enough. Must’ve had some other money. He did live pretty cheap, though. Lived above the B&T the whole time I knew him.

Interviewer’s Note: The “B&T” was the Black and Tan Club, now called the Market Street Pub, located at 430 Market St., Amhurst, PA.

Interviewer:
So…

Doreen:
I’m not so nebby that I woulda asked him about that. He musta had money from somewhere. Saved up maybe, or a settlement from something. Who knows?

He’s still wearing that suit, you know.

Interviewer:
What?

Doreen:
They buried him in that suit, I mean.

Weren’t only a few of us at the funeral. Me, Robbie, some kids who were working for us then, and some guy named Howard. Don’t remember that guy’s last name, but I remember he was a Howard because who the hell is named Howard and doesn’t go by Howie or something, right?

Interviewer:
How did Howard know Connie?

Doreen:
Said he used to work with Connie on some projects. Well, he called Connie “Conrad,” cause acourse a “Howard” would have to call Connie “Conrad,” right?

[Laughter]

Interviewer:
Projects?

Doreen:
That’s all he said and I didn’t ask nothing else, not being a nebshit.

Interviewer:
So you closed right after?

Doreen:
No, we finished the summer out. Mr. McKay of all people came in and ran the projector for those last two weekends.

Interviewer:
Mr. McKay? The funeral director? That Mr. McKay?

Doreen:
Yup. Got to talkin’ to him at the viewing and turns out he worked at the Silver when he was a kid, when Novak had the place. Asked if it was the same projector, and I said I thought it was, and so he said he’d help us out and that it might be fun.

He didn’t wear no suit, though. [Laughter]. Guess he figured he had to wear a suit enough as it was.

Interviewer:
So that was it? Did you know that was going to be the last summer?

Doreen:
We weren’t a hundred percent certain, but it seemed likely.

Interviewer:
Can I ask why?

Doreen:
Lotsa reasons. It was hard to keep it going, moneywise. Me and Robbie was fighting a lot about money by then. Fighting about lotsa things, really, but I guess that’s not what you’re after here, with this interview. [Pause]. But that’s how it was.

We couldn’t keep ourselves together so, we sure as hell–can I swear on this thing?

Interviewer:
Sure.

Doreen:
So we couldn’t keep our marriage together so we sure as hell couldn’t keep the business going together. And then along comes Rite-Drug with a big fat check right after and that was that.

Interviewer’s Note: Rite-Drug bought the property of the Silvermoon Drive-in in November of 2006. The theater was torn down and a Rite-Drug retail location was built on the property. The Silvermoon’s original neon sign was bought and preserved by the Amhurst Historical Society. It can be seen at 1235, Route 56, Amhurst, PA. 

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Something Dark

Photography By July 4, 2017

This blog was hacked about a year ago and I lost most of my content. As I sort through some of my old photographs, I’m noticing that some of my favorites have a sinister undertone. There’s a mild uneasiness or sense of threat in these that I didn’t consciously intend when I took them.

In real life, this is just my son fiddling with a locker because he’s fascinated by all things mechanical, including locks. The finished product has a kind of gritty, industrial quality that reflects my views of mainstream education.

This is from the side of the building in downtown Latrobe, PA. It was a glorious summer day and I think I intended to capture the irony of this menacing cold war symbol with its incongruous sunny yellow paint. As it turns out, though, I don’t think there’s any irony to it. Because of the angle, it just looks looming and threatening without much “sunniness” to it.

Once again, this i s my son. I think the neighbor’s dilapidated ambulance intensifies the threat of the incoming storm. My son looks a bit like a sailor climbing a mast to assess the nasty weather.

The little white figure at the bottom of the hill combined with the looming shadows above makes this look a bit like a cult ritual in the offing. The obscured face of the in-focus figure at the top of the hill magnifies the effect, somehow. In real life, this was a day of fun at Twin Lakes Park.

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First Resort

Photography By July 4, 2017

Every picture I’ve taken means something to me, but there’s only a few that I consider really good photographs. This is one of them. The composition and the light made this a pretty good picture in its raw state, but the heavy-handed processing elevated it beyond a representation of what I saw that day and made it a representation of how I felt when I saw it.

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Of Course They Kept it for You All These Years

Fiction By July 1, 2017 Tags:

The July sun has burned away all traces of the early-morning thunderstorm. And here you are, back again, with that dreamish feeling you always get–with everything the same but different. Should you knock on the old blue door–still blue, but a different shade–or just walk in like you used to? There’s a brand new air conditioner churning away downstairs, but there’s no hiding from the summer heat in this attic. It was in a cardboard box, of course, but everything here is in a cardboard box so the hunt is afoot.

And, oh. This one looks familiar.

 

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Some Predictions on the Future of Work

Life By July 1, 2017

The economic situation is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, so trying to predict anything about the future of work seems foolish. Barring any major global catastrophes, however, here are a few safe bets.

Anything that can be done by a machine, will be.

Humans have been using tools to carry out low-skilled tasks since before the agricultural revolution, but a perfect storm of technological, economic, and political conditions is set to accelerate this process dramatically. We’ve probably had the technology to replace restaurant and store cashiers with kiosks and apps for several years, for example, but up until now it hasn’t made economic sense to do so. The irresistible political pressure to raise the minimum wage, however, is incentivizing companies to invest in machine labor for these jobs. At $7/hour, it still made sense to hire humans to take orders. At $15/hour, it becomes more attractive for companies to invest in automation. The upfront costs are substantial, but the long-term benefit is a “cashier” who rarely makes mistakesn and never calls off, gets sick, or demands health benefits.

But it’s not just the low-skilled jobs that will be replaced. With advances in artificial intelligence and robotics, many skilled blue-collar and white-collar tasks will be automated as well. It’s important not to get stuck thinking about this as if it will be like The Jetsons, though. It’s unlikely that any given business executive will be replaced by the Execubot 3000. More likely, we’ll see 20% of that executive’s tasks being automated. This doesn’t mean the executive will do 80% of the job and take a few hours off every day. It means that a given organization will employ 20% fewer executives.

This same process of partial-job replacement is already in full-swing in some sectors. In some chain restaurants, for example, you now have the option to pay your bill on a tabletop kiosk. There is still a human server to take your order, bring your food, and refill your drinks, but with the bill-paying process handled by machines, the server is able to serve more tables, resulting in fewer servers for the restaurant overall. A similar process is taking place in retail stores. Instead of employing cashiers for each check-out, many grocery and big box stores now have a single employee troubleshooting a bank of self-checkouts. And, of course, ATMs have been partially replacing bank teller jobs for several decades already.

There will be fierce competition in the labor force for the tasks that can’t be done by a machine.

Let’s look at that executive job again. Of the 80% of tasks that can’t be automated, a significant portion of those can be outsourced. There is nothing about living in close proximity to a corporation’s headquarters that makes one uniquely qualified to carry out certain tasks. If a self-employed contractor or consultant in India or the Ukraine is just as capable of doing some of these tasks–and they’re willing to do it for a fraction of the cost of a U.S. executive–then it’s hard to imagine a legal or political restriction that will prevent exactly that from happening.

Human interaction will be a luxury good.

Many people simply hate interacting with machines and will pay a premium for the opportunity to talk to a real person. Much will depend on what proportion of the population is willing to pay this premium and how much they’re willing to pay. Some people might be willing to pay an extra 10% for their groceries if it means they can interact with a human cashier, for example, but they may draw the line a 25% premium. If a critical mass of such people isn’t present in a given community, there may be no local options for that service.

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The Rite of Spring

Art By February 2, 2017

Here’s how The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines ritual:

noun. A formal ceremony or series of acts that is always performed in the same way. An act or series of acts done in a particular situation and in the same way each time.

Every year, on February 2nd, thousands of people gather in the early morning hours at Gobbler’s Knob, a few miles outside of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to witness a weather prediction. Men in formal wear pull a groundhog from a stump. This groundhog’s name is Phil. (Why not?) Tradition holds that if Phil sees his shadow, we’ll have an early spring. If not, we’re stuck with six more weeks of winter. One of the men reads Phil’s prediction in highly-prescribed language. The gathered crowd then rejoices or boos, depending on the outcome. This has happened every year since the 1880s.

Most rituals are serious events—baptisms, weddings, funerals, and the like—but some are just for fun. Blowing out the candles on a birthday cake, for example, or gathering on a freezing cold morning to watch a large rodent predict the weather.

When we hear the word ritual, this is the kind of thing that comes to mind. There’s a formal, prescribed series of events or actions, special clothes, special language, etc. A ritual, in this sense, is not a part of our ordinary daily lives. It’s something special, different, set apart.

The Groundhog Day ritual is what brings Phil Connors to Punxsutawney in the movie Groundhog Day. As a TV weatherman, it’s his job to “present” this ritual to the viewing audience. Because Phil is forced to relive the same day over and over, he’s forced to re-present the Groundhog Day ritual over and over again, too. At the beginning of the movie, it’s clear that Phil feels that this ritual is beneath him.

If this is the first you’ve heard of Groundhog Day, I should point out that no one actually believes that the groundhog can predict the weather. We just act as if he can because it’s fun. The ritual involves some make-believe. Phil Connors comes off as a jerk in the clip above not because he doubts the accuracy of the weather-predicting groundhog. Rather, he’s a jerk because he’s not playing along. The point of this ritual is to be silly and have some fun and Phil is not taking the ritual seriously.

Confucius had a lot to say about these kinds of formal rituals, but he also used the word 禮 (li) in a broader sense. For him, 禮 (li) wasn’t like a set of “Sunday clothes” that we bring out just for weddings and funerals. He recommended bringing the same sense of attention, reverence, and good conduct that we associate with formal rituals to our everyday lives as well.

Oddly enough, by the end of the movie, Phil Connors’ life has become something of a ritual. He has adopted an optimal pattern of behavior for living virtuously in his one allotted day.

Confucius said, “Restrain the self and return to ritual (禮, li). That’s virtue (仁, ren). If for a full day you can restrain yourself and return to ritual (禮, li), everyone under Heaven will move toward virtue (仁, ren)…” (Analects, 12.1)

For his single day, Phil Connors is acting according to 禮 (li). In his last Groundhog Day, Phil not only acts virtuously, he does so with a sense of effortless grace and elegance. He is frictionless, floating smoothly from one virtuous interaction to the next. It is the best illustration of the Confucian conception of the intimate relationship between 禮 (li) and virtue 仁 (ren) I have ever seen. And like that conception, it’s much easier to experience than to put into words.

But, back to the quote, does the “whole world return to virtue” in Groundhog Day? Phil’s “whole world” in the movie is Punxsutawney. (Literally. He cannot leave the town.) Although he doesn’t bring about utopia in Punxy, he does have a profound effect on everyone he interacts with. He comes to the rescue of a carload of stranded elderly ladies, a boy who falls from a tree, and a man chocking on his dinner. He saves the marriage of a young couple. He brings joy and happiness to virtually everyone in the town through his art, his music, and his humor. And, in a scene that destroys me every time I see it, he gives comfort to an elderly homeless man whose death he cannot prevent.

Hold on…get your tissues. I’ll wait here…No, I’m fine. Just got something in my eye. 

By the end of the movie, Phil also exhibits what Confucius called 德 (de), a kind of moral charisma or moral power. In addition to helping others, he exhibits a positive sway over them. Again, it’s easier to experience than to put into words, but just look at how other people “brighten” in Phil’s presence in his final Groundhog Day.

And let’s not forget the more ordinary sense of ritual, either. On Phil’s last Groundhog Day, he has mastered his role in the ritual, retaining the fun while, at the same time, transforming it into a moment of deep and sincere gratitude.

Link: All of Confucius’ Analects on ritual (禮, li).

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