I was now 16 and was working pretty regularly at the Edgewood. I was now driving and I'd even help out at the Rexview on occasion. Anytime I could catch a free minute I'd head to the booth.
Reflections After Dark, Memories of the Drive-In by John Gilbert
Chapter 5
Summer was the best time at the Edgewood. I worked the box-office many nights and made $20.00 a week. With that money I bought a used minibike frame, a second hand engine, a clutch, and chain. In short order I had built a minibike. Now I could park my bike and ride my minibike to the drive-in. The only problem was getting the minibike from home and to the drive-in and back again. The police frowned on using the roads so I found ways to cut through the woods. When I'd get to the edge of the woods and had to use the road for a short distance, I'd carefully look for any police cars. If the coast was clear, I'd gun the throttle and burn rubber. Once in the drive-in the most fun was jumping the car ramps. I could spin the tires in the lose gravel and race around the lot. I'd then shoot down the exit racing toward the street then cut across the grass behind the marquee to the entrance driveway. Then I'd gun the little engine and race toward the box-office, cut down the back row and do it all over again.
The drive-in was also a great place to learn to drive. I was now fifteen and daddy would let me drive his car around the lot during the day. Thanks to time spent in my wooden coaster cart and on the minibike, I was a pretty good driver. I would drive around the lot and dream of the day when I had a car. I just knew I'd never come home. I would stay on the road and constantly drive. I was much slower in the car than on the minibike. I'd drive along the back row and out the back exit drive. There were two exits on the right side of the lot and I'd drive out one and into the other, across the front row and down to the back row again. There's no telling how much gas I burned driving around the lot. Gas was 35¢ a gallon and that was a lot of money. Daddy would drive across town where he could buy it for 32¢ a gallon.
All too soon summer was over and school started again. In October I came home from school one day to find a long box inside of mother's station wagon. Upon closer examination it turned out to be a coffin. A coffin? Daddy explained that they were having a dusk to dawn Halloween show and a funeral home had given him the coffin for a display. He was about to take it to the theater and set it up in the concession. Of course I volunteered to help. We hauled the coffin into the concession and sat it on two saw horses. He placed a sign on the coffin announcing the dusk to dawn show and anyone that stayed through the entire night got coffee and donuts the next morning. I didn't like scary movies but I did like donuts and I knew that I would be working that weekend. I was sure I could take care of any leftover donuts that might go to waste. Halloween night the lot was almost full. The screen was filled with monsters, demons, and vampires. These were the days before the slasher films. Throughout the night more and more cars left as the hours past. The show was actually over at about 4 AM. I'm sure it was dawn somewhere but not at the Edgewood. There were only a few cars left and nobody seemed interested in the donuts but me. In a moment there was only one car left and the driver was standing outside his car yelling at my father.
"I paid to see a dusk to dawn show and it ain't dawn!" he demanded with slurred speech. He was drunk and belligerent. Daddy finally told me to go to the concession and call the police. The guy promptly got into his car and sped away. We left for the bank, daddy with the deposit and me with a box of donuts on my lap.
I was now 16 and was working pretty regularly at the Edgewood. I was now driving and I'd even help out at the Rexview on occasion. Anytime I could catch a free minute I'd head to the booth. I always enjoyed talking with Harold Bishop. He was now letting me thread the projectors. If I was in the booth at a changeover, he'd pull the next reel out of the film cabinet and ask if I'd like to thread this one. I'd take the reel and place it in the top magazine and pull the numbered leader down to the number 7. I'd then put my left index finger on the intermittent sprocket and give the motor a turn with my right hand. The sprocket would turn and stop. When the sprocket had stopped that meant I had set the shutter. I would now place the number 7 in the gate, squarely in the aperture. With the film on the intermittent I'd close the gate. Then I'd place the film on the feed sprocket and close the roller and reel any excess film back onto the feed reel and close the magazine door. Next the film went from the intermittent sprocket to another sprocket above the sound drum. From there the film ran around the sound drum to the sound drum sprocket. The film was pulled tight and then backed off one sprocket hole so it would fit loosely around the sound drum. Then the sound drum snubbing roller was closed. From there the film rounded the take up sprocket and into the bottom magazine to the take up reel. With the slack wound onto the take up reel I'd give the motor switch a quick flip on then off to make sure the film was running properly. Next I'd open the lamp house and check the carbons. Each carbon would run about three reels and then need replacing. They burned like welding rods producing a brilliant light. Harold would then check my work. If he changed over to the next reel and something was wrong, they wouldn't blame me. It was his neck that was on the line.
One foggy spring night that the theater was socked in. I was already in the booth when daddy came in. All I could see out the porthole were shafts of flickering light spreading out through the thick fog.
"Anybody left on the lot?" Harold asked daddy.
"There may be a few, " Daddy replied. "I gave out a lot of passes."
Just then the changeover bell rang. Harold turned to me.
"You want to make this changeover?" he asked.
My eyes got as big as saucers. "Sure!"
As I stepped up the left projector my heart began to race. I threw the lamp house switch and struck the carbons. There was a loud electric hiss and sparks flew from the lamp house as I rammed the rods together to start the arc. I stepped to the porthole and tried to find the screen in the gloom. Through the fog I could just make out the image through the shafts of light. Harold let me make this changeover because he knew that if I messed up, no one would know the difference. My heart was literally pounding in my chest and I was shaking like a leaf. It's no joke that I thought I was about to fall down with nervousness. After a moment I could just make out the first Que dot. I turned on the motor switch and the motor ground to life. I then opened the lamp house dowser which let the light shine onto the closed changeover plate. 5, 6, 7, 8. The second que dot flashed onto the screen. "Clack," sounded the changeover plates in both projectors as one closed and the other opened in the same instant. At that same instant I threw the sound switch. The changeover was perfect! I was still trembling as I shut off the power to the other projector and removed the spent reel. Harold took the reel from me and handed me the next. I cautiously threaded that reel because my hands were still shaking. The changeover was the most important part of the show and I had just accomplished my first one. I was happy. Though no one had actually seen the changeover through the fog but I knew it was perfect.
"Well Herschel," said Harold to my father and slapping me on the back, "Looks like we've got another operator. Won't be long before he'll have his own theater."
To me those were the highest words of praise. Projectionist were often called operators and it was a worthy title. They were called on to operate not only film projectors but spotlights, stage rigging, and whatever it took to put on a show. And now Harold was including me in the brotherhood of theater projectionist. What an honor!
As the weather warmed I inherited a new job, one I didn't like: cutting grass. To make some extra money, daddy took over the job of cutting the grass at the Edgewood and it involved me. This was not the way I wanted to spend my summer vacation. I now had a drivers license and my job for the summer was to figure ways to borrow the car. Daddy bought a riding lawnmower and he said that if I would cut the grass, he'd do the trim work. Well, at least maneuvering the lawnmower was akin to driving so it couldn't be all that bad. All that summer we cut grass. I hoped that we'd have a drought so the grass would die and it was pretty dry that summer. But all it took was an afternoon thunderstorm and the grass shot up and out came the lawnmowers.
 My father knew no shame when it came to advertising. Even our family car wasn't off limits. If bumper stickers reading, "Attend a Drive-in Movie Tonight," weren't enough, on this particular day he pulls into our driveway with a signboard on top of the car. Daddy had attached a luggage rack to the cars roof and had mounted a plywood sign running the length of the car. Guy wires ran from the front and back of the sign and were attached to the bumpers to hold it steady. The sign read, "Bonnie and Clyde at the Edgewood Drive-in." This would never do! I wanted to borrow the car and drive to my girlfriend's house that afternoon. I couldn't pull into her driveway with this big shark fin announcing Bonnie and Clyde. Daddy needed mother's station wagon to pick up some supplies for the drive-in. As soon as he was out of site, off came the sign. I drove to my girlfriends house but didn't get to spend too much time together. Her mom made her practice the piano for an hour. We then sat on her front porch until I knew I'd better beat feet back home so daddy could have his car. I was in luck. He wasn't home yet and I promptly put the sign back onto the car and finished attaching it before he got home. While he was out he had talked a friend of his into hauling an old junk car in front of the marquee. We spent the rest of the afternoon painting bullet holes on it. He then attached another sign to the top of the wreck announcing, "Bonnie and Clyde, Starts Friday." I could see people rubbernecking as they went by to see if that was the real car. It wasn't.
That summer I had saved $14.00 and bought an 8 mm movie camera. Bonnie and Clyde inspired me. I decided to shoot my own version of the movie. With my go-cart as the getaway car and my sisters and the neighborhood kids as actors, I was in the movie business. My movie didn't last for more than thirty seconds but it was fun. Now the money I made was going to film and processing. I took my camera everywhere and shot everything. I still have those films and the quality was terrible but I got better. I even shot scenes at the Edgewood. Years later I would again shoot film at the theater.
 The summer of 1970 was fun for my sisters. The "Cheyenne Social Club" had played in the first run theaters earlier in the year. Daddy knew that it would come to the drive-in sometime in the summer and he would be ready. Westerns usually did well. My father wanted to show first run movies at the Edgewood but that's not how things worked. Drive-ins were the "redheaded stepchild" of the movie industry. Distributors didn't take them seriously. It's not that drive-in owners wanted to show a steady diet of monster and "B" movies but so many times that's all they could get. It wasn't until the breakup of the studio owned theaters that drive-ins were able to bid on better pictures. Daddy ordered a six sheet (a very large poster) and when it arrived, he and I set to work pasting it on beaver board. After the glue had dried he started cutting it out with his "Cutsall" machine. We then mounted it onto a 2 x 4 frame and hauled it to the marquee. The sign looked just fine but daddy had an even better advertising idea. To draw more attention to the marquee, he dressed my sisters and cousins in hoop skirts and had them dancing on the marquee that Friday night. Here were five girls dancing the can-can in the bright lights of the marquee on a busy highway. They nearly caused a traffic jam! Cars full of teenaged boys drove by again and again whooping, whistling, and blowing their horns.
Thursday night was marquee changing night. Daddy would spell out the coming attractions with the start time in the order he wanted them. He would always put the most popular feature second. That way patrons would sit through the first feature and the intermission and hopefully visit the concession. With instructions in hand I would head down the entrance to the marquee. The Edgewood's marquee was wedge shaped, two sides facing the street and a door in the back. I would unlock the door and flip the light switch on. The room was small and cubbyhole shelves lined both walls. Letters A - Z filled 24 cubbyholes and 0 - 9 filled ten more. I would pull two of each letter, one for each side, and spell out the title of the next attraction. There were never enough E's. I would need to take them from the existing titles. I would unlatch the doors to the marquee face. Two steps led up to the landing, a walkway about three feet wide. The fluorescent lights were blinding as I carried the red Masonite letters up the two steps. Moths by the thousands fluttered around the long fluorescent bulbs and into my face. They're were so many moths that they would have made a wool sweater run for cover! One by one I removed the old letters from their channels leaving the ones I'd need for the next title. I'd then place the first letter in the upper channel, lifting it up so the bottom of the letter would slip over and into the lower channel then move to the next. With the first side finished I'd hop down onto the flower box and then onto the ground. I'd back up a few steps back to observe my handiwork. It looked pretty good so I climbed back onto the marquee, grabbed the old letters, and went back inside to file them away. Then I opened the other side to do the same. Great! A fluorescent tube was out. I hurriedly changed the sign and filed the letters away. From a long box I drew out a new tube longer than I was tall. Carefully, I carried the tube onto the walkway and replaced the burned out one. Now the fun began. I hopped off the marquee with the bulb and walked across the exit driveway, across a dirt road, and down to a creek that ran under Macon Road. Now the tube became a glass javelin. The culvert was a charging beast that had to be stopped. I found the balance point of my spear and carefully raised it above my head not daring to take my eyes off of my prey. In a graceful sweeping motion I drew my arm back, my javelin perfectly level. The beastly culvert could only look on in horror as the tip of my spear pointed dead on with its heart. Energy surged into my arm propelling the tube forward. As hard as I could throw, my spear cut through the air taking in every ounce of energy that my fingers could provide. At my arms fullest extent I released my javelin. It was now up to inertia to carry it to its mark. Silently my missile streaked toward the awaiting culvert which had no where to turn. "Poof" came the sound I was waiting for. A small explosion, shattering glass, and white powder in the air let me know the culvert was no longer a threat. It had been bested!
The sound of a passing car brought me back to my scenes. I dashed back to the marquee and locked it up. I had to be quick about it. In a few moments the timer would shut the lights off and it would be a dark walk back to the box office. I had scarcely gotten the lock closed when I heard a loud click and it was dark. Carefully I made my way to the entrance driveway and the lights that ran down its center. Each light was a small bulb under a green metal shade and cast a faint circle of light onto the gravel driveway. The lights on the back of the screen and the fence were still on and cast a prism of color against the darkness. Beyond the fence I could see the projection booth spewing out its ever changing shafts of light. As I rounded the curve in the driveway the fence lights went off. The box-office was a dark silhouette with a single light filtering from the window between daddy's office and the box-office. Daddy and Officer King would be inside getting the deposit ready. Buster King worked security at the Edgewood. He seemed to have a sixth sense and knew when someone was up to something. He was always catching kids trying to sneak into the show in the trunk.
I walked past the office and headed for the projection booth. There were a couple of dozen cars on the lot, barely desirable in the faint blue and yellow lights from the pole behind the concession. The echo from six hundred speakers reverberated around the lot giving the actors voices a ghostly quality. As I made my way up the booth steps I heard the familiar clatter of the projectors mixed with voices. As I made my way through the screen door it looked like Harold Bishop was throwing a projectionist party. I was greeted by Arthur Burrows and Hubert Martian, two other projectionist. I liked Arthur and Hubert. Arthur was funny and always had a smile on his face. Just then the changeover bell sounded.
"Johnny, you want to make this changeover?" Harold asked.
"Sure!" I said jumping at the chance.
I fired up the arc lamp and took my position at the porthole. In a moment the que mark flashed in the top right-hand corner of the screen. I turned on the motor and opened the dowser. Eight seconds later the second mark flashed in the corner. I pressed the changeover peddle on the floor as I flipped the sound switch. The last reel was now running.
"Couldn't have done it better myself," Arthur grinned.
I was proud of my accomplishment. I turned off the lamp and the motor in the other projector and took the spent reel to the rewind table.
"Must be nice to have someone operate your booth," Hubert quipped.
Harold just smiled. He had no problem letting others run the show. The job did have its tedium and besides, it was good training for me. Some years later my friend and fellow operator Tom Lenard told me that this is why Harold was such a good story teller. Like Scheherazade, Harold would tell stories to keep his fellow projectionist from leaving. He loved to tell about being on the set with John Wayne during the filming of "The Green Berets" at Fort Benning. Then when the changeover bell rang it was, "How about making this changeover for me?" It was a lonely job and I'm sure he liked the company as well.
In a few minutes the credits were rolling and I turned on the floodlights. Next came the sounds of dozens of engines cranking as the end of the film flipped off of the reel. I turned off the motor switch and for the first time in four hours the booth was quiet. Harold started turning off switches in the breaker box and off went exhaust fans and the water pumps that cooled the projectors film gate. Now there was only the sound of the little motor that turned the film rewinder. With the reel rewound, I placed it in its proper slot in the film cabinet to await its turn the next night and Harold turned off the remaining switches. The lot was now dark as three of made our way down the stairs to the back of the concession. Only the low wattage down lights at each corner of the concession gave any glimmer of light as Harold locked the booth door and joined us. There was the usual idle chatter as we heard the sound of a car cranking in the distance. It was daddy at the box-office. In a moment his car appeared, driving around the fence and heading our direction. Though he was moving slowly, his engine was racing. Daddy would drive the distance in 1st gear. He thought the racing engine would warm faster. In a moment daddy joined us. He was always happy to be in the company of projectionist. He wanted to be in both worlds, a manager and a projectionist. He was as at home in a booth as he was the office. Daddy would ask about the other operators and how's this one doing and have you heard from that one.
"Well, we've got to get to make the deposit," daddy would say as he walked to the concession and checked the door to make sure it was locked.
"G'night Herschel," they'd say as they walked to their cars. "G'night Johnny."
I wished them good night as Daddy and I got into the car and started toward the exit. There were concrete post that lined the exit. They were painted different colors and spaced every few feet on either side of the drive. Glitter had been sprinkled in the paint and the posts sparkled and reflected the headlights as we drove toward the street. What a wonderful place. Even after the lights were turned off the Edgewood still put on a show in the headlights of the car. We stopped at the end of the drive at Macon Road and then turned right. The road was dull and plain after the color and glitter of the drive-in. As the sultry night air blew through the car window I was content. I must have supposed that life would always be this pleasant. There would always be a show and colored lights would always shine in the night. Little did I realize that the winds of change were starting to blow.
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John Gilbert > Reflections After Dark, Memories of the Drive-In 5