 Well, thank you for coming today. Thank everybody else's vast audience for coming today. Appreciate it. So yeah, your book sounds very interesting. Thank you. I'll get a copy and we'll get you some publicity here. Oh, thank you. I'm Camille Smalley. I wrote The Sacco Drive-In or Cinema Under the Main Sky. So my first plug is that my friend Charlie Wittes took all the photos for this book and he's an amazing photographer. It's a great website if you're interested. That was part of our deal. I paid him in chocolate chip cookies to take the photos and publicity. So does anybody hear about last year's Honda push to save drive-ins and the big campaign that we had? Okay, great. So last summer was a monumental year for drive-ins across the country, including The Sacco Drive-In. 2014, this year, marks the end of the production of film. So last year, drive-ins needed to convert to a digital format. Most drive-ins still run off of 35-millimeter or more film projection, which was great when it first opened, but now it's definitely becoming obsolete. Hollywood has decided that they don't want to produce any films actually on film anymore and that they were all digital. This means that drive-ins nationwide has to convert to digital. Now, it sounds simple. You just go to the store and buy a digital projector, except the projectors cost about $80,000. That's for the lowest model. So it's a very expensive endeavor for these amusements that are only open from May, maybe April, if we have a really good warm-up through September or October. Now, if you're a drive-in in, say, Texas or Georgia, you have much more even weather all year round and can be open much longer as most of them are. Unfortunately for those of us in Maine, especially with this winter that we all remember too well, the drive-in didn't open until late April and normally we try to open in early April. So there again, there's some revenue loss. So last year, we participated in this big project called Project Honda, which we actually approached Honda at the beginning of last year. We knew we had to convert to digital and we thought, how are we going to do this? So Rye Russell, the manager of the drive-in and Justin Shinet, who's the Soco State Representative and myself, because we're all friends, got together and decided how are we going to fundraise and save one of Soco's biggest icons. So we thought, we have a great plan. We are going to approach the car dealerships on the Soco Auto Mile for sponsorships to save the drive-in. That's right. No money down, zero APR. So our plan was to offer them advertising. They put down, you know, $5,000. We can negotiate a package for their advertisements to run on the new digital projector. So we figured we could easily fundraise maybe $10,000 and then have five to seven auto dealerships sponsor the digital projector. Cars, you know, sales. It all goes together, right? We all got told, oh yeah, you have to talk to So and So and funding, So and So never answered the phone. So that didn't work so well. So what we ended up doing was we approached Honda and they said, well, you know, this is a very interesting idea, we'll think about it. Well, after all the other answers, we thought, yeah, sure, you'll think about it like everybody else thinks about it. Then we got a call in July. Well, we thought about it and we've talked to some other drive-ins and, yes, this digital projector is in need. So we're going to run this contest called Project Honda to have people vote the public, vote for the drive-ins that they want to win digital projectors. We thought, well, this is great. This is, you know, our golden egg because we had had three fundraisers and we raised about $5,000, which is $75,000 short of a digital projector. So we filmed the Honda campaign at the drive-in and they filmed it a few other locations. We did a huge Facebook push. We had people voting every day. You could vote by text, you could vote by Facebook. It was a marathon all last summer. And part of the fundraising effort we thought was, well, we'll produce an e-book and people can purchase the e-book and that'll be part of our fundraisers. So I put out a call to the Soccer Historical Society as well as people around town in different press releases and tried to spread the reach out and said, hey, if you have a memory of the soccer drive-in, please send it to me and it'll be included in this e-book that you could purchase. I think we put the price at $5 on Amazon and hopefully that would help us push us toward our goal. So as we're going, I get the e-book out. People really enjoyed it. And then it comes to be September when they're going to announce who won the digital projector. It was a nail biter and they decided they were going to announce one winner over the next 10 days, which is the most painful thing I've ever experienced. I had talked to myself in the mirror in the morning and said, you're not going to win and it's going to be fine. Even though you put your whole life full this summer into this, it'll be okay. So I go to work at the Soccer Museum and I'm at work and I get a phone call from Rai Russell, the manager of the drive-in. And he says, come on, I just heard from Honda and we won. And I was like, Rai, you're kind of a prankster. Are you sure? Are you sure it was Honda and not someone calling you and saying they're Honda? And he was like, no, we won. And so he had to convince me. And then I started crying and then he started crying and we're all crying on the phone. And we decided that we were going to have a party that evening to celebrate the drive-in winning the digital projector. So after all of that press, because we got press from Boston News, Portland News, and actually even as far as Virginia for winning the digital projector, which is amazing. Things from Soccer rarely trickle out past Portsmouth. So getting Boston News was great. And then a few days later, I get an email from Rai that's a forward from someone else. And I open it and it's the history press asking me if I wanted to write a book about the history of the drive-in. And I thought, oh my goodness, this is great. And so I emailed her back and said, sure, I've already written an e-book. So they looked at the e-book and they said, oh, this is great. It's a great 6,000 word narrative. It had to be 33,000 words. Well, as I previously mentioned, last winter already it's a good thing. It was so cold so I could stay in and write instead of wanting to go out and do things. So it was a good experience writing the book. What I did was, is because it starts off, the e-book started off with the history and then went into people's stories. So what I did was I expanded the original concept to include soccer history from pretty much the point of contact of people coming here and starting a fishing village. And then I followed the way that transportation had changed. So I kind of chronicled the development of roads, how we started to have roads, and how the soccer automobile kind of developed around the drive-in, the history of drive-ins, kind of 30s, 40s culture. And then I have people who submitted their memories and I talk about those. And I actually, through this process, got to meet some really interesting people. One of the people I got to meet was a gentleman who worked as an usher at the drive-in. His name is Don Whidham. He worked there from 1945 on. He had returned from war and decided to work at the drive-in. So I got some really good information from him and I'll read his story in a minute. So the theater opened in July of 1939 with a comedy starring June Clive and Jimmy Durant. Then admission was only 35 cents a person. Now it's $15 a car. So I think the amount is about the same reasonably 35 cents a person then versus $15 a car now. So it's still a really affordable amusement. The theater was advertised as a place to enjoy the talkies and watch a movie from the privacy of your own car. The theater gained popularity opening in June through the summer season and it closed in October. In 1942, the theater went dark as the government issued blackout curtains. I figured they didn't want the Germans to be circling watching the end of the movie before they made their wartime decisions. However, even though the theater went dark it promptly reopened the next summer. As I mentioned, I met with Don Whidham and I will read you his piece which was probably my favorite. He still lives right next to the drive-in. I met with him at his house. Oh man, he's about 90 years old. After I interviewed him he said you're going to write these notes down, right? Because I'm probably just going to talk. And I said that's fine. I will write your notes and I will turn them into the narrative that it should be. He's like okay good because I can't write all this down. It's just going to come out. That's fine. And he sweetly patted me on the shoulder and told me he was so glad to have met me and talked to me that day. So it was just a very fun experience. So this is Don Whidham, from Scarborough to Soco Drive-In Usher. I was born in Dunstan, Scarborough and remember going to the drive-in when it first opened in 1939. I rode my bike with some friends from Scarborough to Soco and the ticket man said I was too young for the film. I was ahead Usher at the drive-in from 1946 through 1956. After World War II I came home and Mr. O'Neill, one of the owners along with Eugene Borogene asked me if I wanted to work at the drive-in. I said yes. Mr. Borogene specifically were very nice people. Eugene Borogene was a happy-go-lucky man who really enjoyed having families and children at the drive-in. He really focused on the drive-in playing family movies and he actually knew someone in the film business to get those first-run films. That summer, in 1946, I met my wife Jean. She was working as a ticket taker in the ticket booth at the drive-in and we were married that fall for 43 years until her death. In 1946 until about 1947 the Soco Drive-In had only one large speaker on top of the screen. It blared so loud that the people all the way down to Pine Point could hear the sound. People often complained about the noise from the theater but no one ever actually did anything about it. When the individual speakers came along I placed them on the cars and also fixed them when anything was wrong. Sometimes I helped in the projection room with the two projectors that ran on carbons. They took up the entire room together. You had to unwind the film wheels and watch carefully to prevent a break in the film. When the film broke you used special cells to piece it back together. Of course, at times, bugs came in and got stuck on the glass and skipped the film. In the early days, the capacity was 125 cars. After the theater switched to individual car speakers the space without the large speaker made room for more cars, bumping the drive-in up to 300 cars. A stock-aid fence was added after the loudspeaker was removed. About 1954, a new panoramic screen was installed. In the late 1940s the drive-in sold hot dogs from the ticket booth and you didn't even have to buy a ticket to buy a hot dog. Then, later, there were two concession stands one behind the projection room which is still there and one to the far right upon entering the theater and the building is still there. Both stands sold hot dogs, ice cream, hamburgers, soda and coffee. The playground was off to the right and had slides and swings for the kids. We had many popular films, the Soco Drive-In, back in the 40s and 50s. I remember we had the greatest show on earth play in 1956 or 1957 from Dusk Till Dawn. The drive-in was packed. This movie came out in about 1952 with Charlton Heston, Jimmy Stewart and Betty Hutton. Everyone loved it. We also had Cecil A. Moore known as Mush Moore about his adventures about running a dog sled race from Lewiston to Alaska. Many people enjoyed the Soco Drive-In in those days. Having speakers come to the drive-in was something a lot of other drive-ins also did. It was another way to bring people in and try to make more money. Even though the film when they were printing on film it was hard for drive-ins to get first run films. A lot of times they played movies on their third run or their fifth run and they were often two years old so it was really hard to get first run films. It was really special for the Soco Drive-In to actually be able to play more current films. The second film was often a later film. They also had various things come to the drive-in like talent shows and things like that just to try to get people excited and like I said make more money so they can afford better films. A few different drive-ins like one in New Jersey actually had a place where you can fly your airplane in and watch the movie. Of course that didn't happen in Soco much. So next to the Soco Drive-In I don't know if anybody remembers but the Cascades Inn and their big shore dinners. So that was on the corner. Of course now it's kind of a strange strip mall and a beverage redemption or something. So that was of course right next to the drive-in which the drive-in very much benefited from being located so close to Old Orchard Beach which it still does. Eugene Boregene who is the most known owner of the drive-in. He also named the drive-in the motor in theater and the Soco motor in theater before he called it the Soco Drive-In. He was an Italian immigrant transplanted from New York and he owned the theater with his wife Helen. One of my favorite parts of this the drive-in history is that Eugene Boregene one of the original owners was an Italian immigrant. He was a house painter in New York according to the census records. I would love to go back in time and my TARDIS and ask him why did you move to make it open a theater when you were a house painter. I haven't quite been able to figure that out but inside the drive-in in some of the photos in the book that I received he actually painted a mural that's on the inside of the concession stand. It's been painted over since unfortunately but in the book you can see big palm trees and just that he was very talented. So that's kind of something that I think is one of those kind of American dream kind of stories that shows the drive-in is really an American invention. So Boregene like I mentioned he didn't mind having families and children at the drive-in and with Cascades being next door of course a lot of families would come. Well Cascades had a large wait staff and a lot of times the wait staff would work the late night shift and then have to open in the morning. So they had dorms on site at Cascades for the wait staff to live in and think of the movie Dirty Dancing. So with the dorms being there even if you lived on Flagpond Road which isn't that far going at night home and then coming back early in the morning is a lot for you know a teenager. So they'd often sleep over. So I was told a little story that sometimes they would sleep over and then sneak over to the drive-in. So I got this story from actually the development officer at the soccer museum Nancy Tripp her sister used to do this. I worked at Cascades restaurant while I was in my late teens during the summers in the 1950s. I worked a variety of shifts sometimes closing one evening and opening for breakfast the next morning. Cascades had dormitories for servers particularly in that situation. I had several friends who did not live very far from Cascades or from the soccer drive-in but when you work those back to back closing and opening shifts even going three miles seems to be too much. After closing up in the evening a group of us would climb through the shrubs and watch films at the soccer drive-in without actually going into the drive-in. We couldn't hear the movie but it was free and a great way to blow off steam after work. Which, who can argue with that? I suppose most of us that go to the gym you can't really hear the TV anyway but we know what's going on it's still entertaining. So families have enjoyed the soccer drive-in for 75 years. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the soccer drive-in and it's incredible for a small family-owned, always family-owned business in Maine which is definitely something to celebrate. So I'm going to read to you some of my favorite stories that people submitted to me from the drive-in. So this story is from Alexis Moody who's from Scarborough, Maine. There is nothing like packing up a cooler, bringing some blankets the comfortable lawn chairs with the cup holders and watching a movie at the soccer drive-in. For my family it's something that happens every summer and multiple times per season. Money is tight for us and it has been a while but thanks to the great prices of the soccer drive-in we can take all three of our kids out to enjoy two movies for the matinee prices of two adults tickets at a regular theater. Not counting food. I don't know how the soccer drive-in is able to do this but I'm grateful. Our family enjoys time outdoors with great film together. Last season we went and saw Monsters University and the entire drive-in was packed. I think they sold out that weekend. I can't recall the second film but there were so many families laughter and smiles. And that's something that keeps Rai Russell running the drive-in is having a place where all these families can come and enjoy movies together and the fact that it's still 75 years later is such a good family atmosphere. I think it speaks to kind of our culture about families and being together and spending time together being important. So this story I really appreciated when it came in because when I think of drive-ins I think of horror cheesy movies that they showed at drive-ins especially in the 60s because they weren't getting as good of films then and of course drive-ins started closing in the 70s and then in the 1980s they often showed adult films as I have had many people different volunteers at the soccer museum say to me that place showed dirty films and I just had to like hold back a giggle because it was so funny the way they would say it to me. So we're really lucky that the soccer drive-in made it through those really lean times that has been able to show modern films and then family films again. So this memory kind of speaks to that 1970s, 1960s, horror kind of gory films that they showed at the drive-in. This is from Constance Downs and she didn't give me a location. I went to the soccer drive-in with my boyfriend quite often in the early 1970s. My mother thought I was going with a group of girlfriends but she never knew that I was actually meeting up with my boyfriend at the drive-in. I'm sure she'd be horrified to know that now. I remember seeing films like Night of the Living Dead, House on Haunted Hill, Last House on the Left and other incredibly gory films. Most people I know who went to the drive-in enjoyed those films too. Well, when they were paying attention. By then, there were not as many families at the theater as there had been when I was a child. It was more those of us teenagers who have had a newfound freedom with the car. I think the drive-ins gave us freedom to just be and experience life on our own. So I think that's also true. Another piece of the drive-in history is this kind of movement from being so family centric to being a place, you know, kind of a safe place for teenagers to go and then, of course, coming back around to being more of a family place like it is now. Of course, they try to play a more variety of films with having a kid's movie first or of a, you know, late teens adult movie second so that way families can leave if they want to or, you know, the kids fall asleep in the car and so then you can watch the adult movie and take them home and put them to bed in their pajamas. Which was also a story I got a lot from different people was I remember taking the kids to the drive-in in their pajamas and carrying them home. And it's funny because spending nice to the drive-in last summer, various times this summer I still see kids playing in their pajamas and playing catch cookouts and it's very cyclical this whole notion of, you know, the drive-in being this great place and that it has, the best part to me is that it has nostalgia and history but it's still current. It's still a place you want to go and it's still a place you want to bring your family. So the book has more stories and more history but do you have any questions? I totally relate to the the 50's going to the Portland Drive-In. That was a really nice thing. Me too. But in recent years not with you. In recent years my grandson, well this is going to be 10 years ago they live out of state because they had never been to a drive-in so it was a whole new concept for them. So I took them to the Pride's Corner which is closest to me. They had no idea what it was. So we're going to the drive-in movie there. And there was two feature films and I thought well they were older but they'll watch the first film and then fall asleep. It never happened. They were wide away from both things and we'd get home to laugh at midnight and I was beat. But that was whenever they came to visit me from out of state that's what we scheduled. Oh yeah. I'm a recent major so I don't remember this place at all or any of these others but Long Island, New York is where I grew up. We had drive-ins there and some of these things you're saying are totally the same thing. We had a playground, had concession stands and I can remember the concession stand ads that you had on top first. The dancing popcorn thing. And my mom would put my brothers in their pajamas before we went because they would fall asleep in the back seat of the car and yeah it was a lot of fun. Yeah the drive-in actually originated in New York or I mean in New Jersey is where the first drive-in opened and then after that it just became very formulaic and everywhere had a drive-in. In the back of the book I actually have an appendix of all the drive-ins that were in Maine almost every single town had a drive-in. Kenny Bunk, Sanford you know, Bitterford didn't but they're just everywhere. They're going to Bridgeston right? Yep there's still, there's five active ones in Maine still. We have the Sacco Drive-In we have the Pride's Corner Drive-In, the Bridgeston Drive-In the Scout Hegan Drive-In and the Madawaska Drive-In. And the funny thing is that the Madawaska Drive-In opened in 1972 which is as of course drive-ins are closing Madawaska goes, hey we have a great drive-in. I can look, it's in my appendix. I don't have any with me because my dad bought all of my drive-in books. Because he insisted on it but if you buy them I will gladly come sign them for you. So the Portland Twin Drive-In opened in 1949. So that was only ten years after the Sacco Drive-In and the Sacco Drive-In was the first drive-in in Maine and the second in New England beat out only by Weymouth Massachusetts by a couple of years. How many different people have owned it in this history? Supposedly the first owner the first there was a co-owner in the beginning and Eugene Boregine came and there were three of them. From most of the older people I've spoken to that worked at the drive-in there was a Mr. O'Neill a Mr. Boregine and another guy who wasn't very nice who only came in once a week. I've only heard of this other guy as being the guy who wasn't very nice so I'm assuming he must have been the financial guy. And then Boregine bought them out and owned it outright and he sold it and it was owned by the person who owned also the Scarborough Drive-In so that I think it was the Hoyt's Cinemas, they owned both of those and then it's currently owned by the Roberge family of Roberge construction in Biddaford. So it's really only had a few when I was looking for business records to try to track that I actually emailed the city of Sacco and they said oh we don't actually have to keep those for longer than five years so it became a little difficult to try to figure that out. Is your book selling well? It is, it's doing pretty well. I haven't gotten a commission check yet but I'm sure that's in the mail. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.