Sept. 17: Skowhegan Drive-In, Skowhegan ME

It’s Day 260 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. It only took an hour to drive from Bangor to the Skowhegan Drive-In in Skowhegan ME.

The Skowhegan was built by Lockwood & Gordon Co. of Boston in 1954, according to an article in the Press Herald. At some point, ownership passed to Doug Corson, who was “involved with the drive-in since graduating from Skowhegan High School in 1956.”

In 2012, Corson sold the Skowhegan to Donald C. Brown Jr., who had run the Diamond State Drive-in in Felton DE before its lease ran out. The Press Herald article said the purchase price “took into consideration … the upgrades that were necessary, including the upcoming digital conversion.”

Less than two years later, Brown launched a FundRazr campaign to pay for digital projection equipment. “The quick conversion to digital by Hollywood movie producers took him by surprise,” wrote CentralMaine.com. ““The model the drive-in operates on isn’t viable anymore,” Brown said. “It’s not just the digital projection system itself. It’s the maintenance that goes along with it. … that’s the uncertainty that the Skowhegan faces.”

Somehow the drive-in endured and found its new projectors. Dated February 2017, the last post on that FundRaze page read, “We’d like to thank all of the patrons of the Skowhegan Drive-In who helped us go digital. We didn’t get the full amount, but at least the amount we raised helped with the installation costs.”

It’s also got a nicely restored sign, as I wrote about last year. The town of Skowhegan and the state offered facade grants to small businesses outside of downtown. Brown got a little over $8,000, and now the neon-lit Skowhegan Drive-In Theatre sign is back.

For the video of the day, I could have embedded a short visit to the Skowhegan, but when would I get another opportunity to use a full drive-in tour conducted by small stuffed animals?

Miles Today / Total: 53 / 30815 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: It / 166

Nearby Restaurant: One of the great things about a short drive is that I arrive in time for breakfast. Combine that with a buffet, and you’ve found the place I want to visit, in this cast Ken’s Family Restaurant. All the bacon I could eat! Made-to-order omelettes! Biscuits and gravy! Donuts! Coffee! It’s a great way to get full enough to skip lunch and dinner.

Where I Virtually Stayed: There are a few cute little motels in Skowhegan; the one I chose is The Towne Motel. It’s no chain hotel, but my room had the full set of modern amenities including wifi. Unlike a lot of small motels, the modest price included a modest continental breakfast. It got me going!

Only in Skowhegan: Skowhegan has the world’s tallest Indian statue, 62 feet tall with a 20-foot base. The engraved wooden sign at the statue’s base reads: “Dedicated to the Maine Indians, the first people to use these lands in peaceful ways.” The indigenous Abenaki people named the area Skowhegan, meaning “watching place (for fish).”

Next stop: Bridgton Twin Drive-In, Bridgton ME.

Sept. 16: Bangor Drive-In, Hermon ME

It’s Day 259 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. I ended the Canadian portion of the trek this day, driving four hours from the Neptune Drive-In in Shediac New Brunswick to the Bangor Drive-In, built in Bangor but thanks to shifting boundaries, now just across the border in the town of Hermon ME.

Thanks to Steve Ginn’s wonderful YouTube history of the Bangor, I found almost all the details of the drive-in all in one place. The drive-in opened in June 1950 with a large single screen. Through the 1970s, it showed mostly mainstream movies with the occasional stag film night mixed in.

A storm blew down the original screen on Jan. 8, 1978. It was replaced that year by the two screens that survive today.

AM Radio sound was added before the 1985 season, which is odd because the Bangor abruptly closed on July 24, 1985. By noon on the 25th, every speaker had been removed. The eight-screen Bangor Mall Cinemas, owned by the same company as the drive-in, opened on the 26th.

The drive-in sat for almost 30 years, its grounds falling into disrepair but those recently built aluminum and steel screens holding up just fine. In 2015, Cinema Bangor LLC renovated and rebuilt the Bangor. The irony here is that the LLC also owned that same Bangor Mall Cinema. The company is fronted by partner Carol Epstein, whose father opened the drive-in in 1950.

The Bangor Daily News related Epstein’s excitement about the project. “[The drive-in] was a big piece of my childhood and I think for a lot of people it was a big piece of their childhood,” she said. Now everything is modern, including the digital projection of course, and the drive-in charges by the carload, which I prefer for some reason.

A special preview night was the occasion for the embedded YouTube video of the day. A radio morning crew visited, and I only hope they didn’t have to get up at 5 am or whatever the next day to work their shift.

How popular is the Stephen King movie It? (Well, his house is in Bangor.) On screen one, the Bangor is showing It followed by Annabelle: Creation. On screen two, the Bangor is showing It followed by The Hitman’s Bodyguard. With a choice like that, I watched It.

Miles Today / Total: 285 / 30762 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: It / 165

Nearby Restaurant: I’m glad I made it here in time for a late lunch at Friars’ Bakehouse. Run by the Franciscan Brothers of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, they offer seemingly simple dishes that taste better than one would expect. My chicken pot pie was amazing, and their signature bread was worth buying extra to save for later.

Where I Virtually Stayed: The Comfort Inn in Bangor had everything I needed for my return to the USA. There were cheese, crackers, and cookies available as evening snacks. My room had a fridge and microwave; it never hurts to ask. And in the morning, the solid Comfort breakfast of waffles, meat, eggs and the continental regulars had me ready for a new day.

Only in Hermon Bangor: At Pickering Square, a pedestrian circle downtown, if you stand in the center and clap your hands, you’ll hear the echo as a squeak. The phenomenon has been reported by several sources, but no one knows exactly why it happens. If you want to try it, don’t go when it’s snowy (it doesn’t work then) but go soon; the city wants to modify the parking garage at one end and hopes it won’t change the acoustics.

Next stop: Skowhegan Drive-In, Skowhegan ME.

Sept. 15: Neptune Drive-In, Shediac NB

It’s Day 258 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. After a week of driving four hours or more every day, I was very happy to spend just over an hour to get from Sussex, New Brunswick to the Neptune Drive-In in Shediac NB.

According to an article in the Times & Transcript, copied into notes on a 2008 petition at GoPetition.com, then-owner Gilles LeBlanc’s father opened the Neptune in 1964. Cinema Treasures says the drive-in closed in 1985 but reopened in 1990. Then around 2006 it closed again, as Gilles put the place up for sale. That petition was delivered to the mayor of Shediac, who had earlier said the town could not afford the asking price of over $1 million.

(By the way, who was Gilles’s father, the founder of the Neptune? In a 2016 obituary, one Gilles LeBlanc, son of Edgar LeBlanc, passed away in Shediac at the age of 60. A 2005 New Brunswick news release said that “Shediac-area resident” Gilles A. LeBlanc pleaded guilty to a violation of the Clean Water Act related to “property owned by his father, Azor LeBlanc.” Then there was the Gilles LeBlanc, former Director of Material Resources for Villa Providence Shediac and son of Ronald LeBlanc, who passed away in 2015 at the age of 53. Was the Neptune’s Gilles one of these? I just don’t know.)

In 2010, “a local business person bought the property and approached (Jeff) Coates with a suggestion to lease the drive-in business,” according to a story in The Globe and Mail. Coates joined with Robert Farquharson to lease the Neptune. In the 2012-13 offseason, they switched to digital projection.

This video of the day, a 2013 report from Global News, casts doubt on the date the Neptune opened, but it’s also a nice interview with Coates and a peek at the freshly converted projection room. For another, wobblier, look at what it was like to visit the drive-in in 2014, check out YouTube.

On my final night in Canada this year, I got a chance to see a new release, American Assassin. I’m always happy to find an active drive-in during the off-season, and doubly glad to watch something fresh.

Miles Today / Total: 69 / 30477 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: American Assassin / 164

Nearby Restaurant: So I’m at the beach, and I want something historic yet inexpensive. The solution was Chez Léo‘s fried clams. It’s only takeout, and the fries aren’t nearly as wonderful, but those fresh, tasty clams can’t be matched just anywhere.

Where I Virtually Stayed: I couldn’t find a chain hotel in Shediac itself, which left me open to a reasonably priced night at the Hôtel Shediac. It’s in the middle of town but looks like it was built recently. My “executive floor” king bed room had the full set of modern amenities including a Keurig. With the pancake machine, breakfast was like a Holiday Inn Express. It’s all good.

Only in Shediac: Remember Animaland, concrete sculptor Winston Bronnum’s park from yesterday? Bronnum also built the most remarkable item in Shediac, the world’s largest lobster. The town calls itself the “Lobster Capital of the World,” so naturally it needed the lifelike 35-foot-long sculpture to remind visitors.

Next stop: Bangor Drive-In, Bangor ME.