By Maria McGinns/ Broadcast version by Mary Schuermann Kuhlman
Reporting for the Kent State-Ohio News Connection Collaboration
COLUMBUS, Ohio - It's a warm summer night at the movies. This year, with the majority of indoor theaters in Ohio still closed because of COVID-19, lines of cars form outside the ticket booths of drive-in theaters instead.
After getting their tickets, drivers pull their cars slowly into the lot marked with poles indicating where to park. Moviegoers then tune their car radios to the right station to hear the old blockbuster feature that night. They listen to ads for the concession stand, where people can wait in line - six feet apart - for their popcorn and snacks. When the sun finally starts to go down, headlights turn off and the movie begins.
As co-owner of the Holiday Auto Theatre in Hamilton, Ohio, Mark Althoetmar has seen an increase in weekday business and first-time guests at the drive-in.
The movie theater industry in general had been dwindling before the pandemic, especially with the increase in streaming services. But now, in a time when social distancing is a top priority, drive-ins are experiencing a resurgence.
"We've seen high school graduations, we've seen weddings," said Nick Hensgen, the owner/operator of driveinmovie.com, a database of all the drive-in theaters currently in operation, worldwide. "Not only are they showing movies now, but several of them have found other ways, other sources of revenue, to help get by until movies start coming out again - which will be later this summer, hopefully."
The first drive-in movie theater opened in 1933 in Camden, New Jersey. By the late 1950s to early 1960s, the number of drive-in theaters in the United States exploded, with more than 4,000 drive-ins opening from coast to coast.
But this "golden age" of drive-ins lasted only about a decade. Most were built in more rural areas, and as urban sprawl continued in the 1970s, it became more profitable to sell the land than operate a drive-in on it, Hensgen explained.
In addition, he said, the implementation of daylight saving time in the summer pushed the drive-in movie start times back by an hour.
"I live in Louisville, Kentucky," Hensgen said. "We're in the very western part of the Eastern time zone. So, during the peak summer, drive-ins around here don't start until 10 p.m. So it's late, especially on weeknights when people have to work. And there's so many entertainment options; it kind of started way back to the '70s and '80s with VHS tapes. But, of course, now we have streaming - just so many in-home entertainment options that folks have now. It's not just drive-ins; the number of indoor theaters has also been decreasing the last several years."
Drive-ins continued to close throughout the 1980s and 1990s. But in the late '90s to early 2000s, the drive-in theater industry experienced a minor comeback as previously closed theaters were renovated and reopened, and some new ones emerged as well.
Then, when the movie industry began using digital cinematography rather than film in the 2000s, some small, rural theaters were forced to close because they couldn't afford the new digital projectors, costing anywhere from $50,000 to $250,000.
Despite the challenges, there are 305 functioning drive-in theaters in the U.S, according to United Drive-in Theatre Owner Association (UDITOA) figures from October 2019. Ohio is home to 24 of them, making it the third-largest state for drive-ins behind New York and Pennsylvania.
"Drive-ins are kind of made for social distancing," Hensgen said. "A lot of these [drive-ins] have gone to online ticket sales, online concession ordering. So, you could literally go to the drive-in and stay in your car the entire time, if that's what you want to do. And inside your car is an environment you can control, versus going to an indoor movie theater - you don't know who's been there, who might be positive for COVID and things like that. But when you're in your car, you can control that environment."
Businesses across the board that have reopened in the pandemic are implementing new policies to keep employees and customers safe, and drive-in theaters are no exception.
At the Skyway Twin Drive-in Theatre in Warren, Ohio, owner Brian DeCiancio said they are enforcing a six-feet-between-vehicles rule, as well as having people order and pick up concessions at windows, since the customers are not allowed inside.
Althoetmar said the Holiday Auto Theatre has also made changes to keep customers and staff safe. He said they've always offered online ticket sales, and have seen an increase - because purchasing tickets beforehand guarantees a spot at the drive-in.
Social distancing markers have been added to the concession stand and restrooms to keep customers at a safe distance, as well as Plexiglas barriers separating customers and employees in the concession area.
Althoetmar added that doorknobs are also regularly sanitized along with general, extensive cleaning at the theater. All employees wear masks and patrons are welcome to either stay inside their cars, or sit outside of them, to watch the movies.
Some drive-ins also host events other than movies. DeCiancio said the Skyway Twin Drive-in Theatre has hosted six graduations, a dance studio recital and is planning other special occasions, as well.
Hensgen said drive-ins are also turning out to be good venues for concerts. Country music artist Garth Brooks performed live on June 27 in Nashville, Tenn., and the concert was shown on screens at 300 drive-ins in the U.S. Tickets cost $100 per vehicle.
Some people will stay home and stream their entertainment; others will go to indoor theaters as they reopen. The big screen and sound system of the indoor movie experience is an immersive way to enjoy a show without household interruptions. Still, Althoetmar said, the drive-in offers a unique experience that can't be duplicated - at home or indoors.
"Going to a drive-in is not only experiencing a movie on a large screen, but also a social experience," he said. "It's almost more like going to a theme park in a lot of ways. It's not just about the movie, but it's sitting outside, watching the sunset and seeing a film under the stars in lawn chairs. During the trip to the concession stand, one may see friends and neighbors. Drive-ins offer entertainment and a sense of community."
The sheer uniqueness of the experience leads Althoetmar to believe the industry won't see much of a decline, although he acknowledged that it depends on what the companies producing and releasing films decide to do.
In the past, when a movie was released, it would not be available on streaming platforms for several months. Now, that window has shrunk - it can be anywhere from 45 days to two months. This has long been a source of contention between theater owners and film companies, as theaters like having an exclusive window of time to show movies before they are more widely available.
Althoetmar said he doesn't think this will affect drive-ins, however.
"People do want to just get out of the house right now," he said. "So, even though there's not a big movie that's been released, people are coming out to the drive-in. That could be something that might be unique to COVID-19, is that people are willing just to go out to see a movie, no matter what movie it is."
Hensgen agrees that drive-ins can survive financially this season, even if they only show retro films or older movies released before the pandemic.
"I do think it's possible," he said. "Now, one of the reasons they're selling out is, most drive-ins are operating at 50% capacity because they're leaving a space between cars. But so far, most of these drive-ins appear to be having no problem filling up."
DeCiancio said drive-ins are at the mercy of the movie studios for new fare, as new releases aren't likely to happen until many more indoor theaters have reopened. He said there simply aren't enough drive-ins for film studios to justify putting new movies out at this time.
Althoetmar's Holiday Auto Theatre is going to continue to show retro movies, with new releases as the studios provide them. AMC Theaters, the world's largest theater owner, plans to reopen all its theaters in July - bringing good news to drive-in owners.
"Disney pushed back Mulan, which was the very first, big movie of the summer season," Althoetmar said. "So, we're looking forward to that hitting the screen and having a new movie. After that, I think there will be other films that start to get released. I think they're all just taking it week by week, maybe throwing something out there, and then seeing how it works."
The drive-in theater pioneers of the 1950s probably could not have predicted that this form of entertainment would go out of style - or that a health crisis would prompt its surprise resurgence some seven decades later. Drive-ins may be seen as a novelty, but these businesses operate in their own unique niche in the entertainment world.
"Over the next decade, we may lose a couple more, but I think the majority of the ones that are around today are still going to be around," Hensgen said. "Most of them don't have competition from other drive-ins. Of course, they have competition from other entertainment options - indoor movie theaters, streaming services. But most drive-ins that are still around, there's a lot of them where there's not another drive-in for hundreds of miles."
This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.
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The Wind River Water and Buffalo Alliance is looking for a graphic artist to develop a logo.
Before Europeans arrived, some 60 million buffalo roamed North America.
After the animal was slaughtered, in part to extinguish tribes that lived alongside buffalo for centuries, just 23 remained by 1900.
Wes Martel - senior conservation associate with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition - said the new logo should convey a message of hope and power, as the alliance works to restore buffalo and other key elements of indigenous culture.
"So now we're seeing a revival," said Martel, "we're seeing a new energy, we're seeing our young people now becoming educated in the modern technological ways and scientific ways that we need to protect what we have. And that's all we're trying to do, protect a way of life."
Artists are encouraged to submit logo designs by email to media@greateryellowstone.org by May 15. The top entry will be awarded $2,500, second place will receive $1,00, and third place gets $500.
Details on how to apply and the design specifications are online at greateryellowstone.org.
The alliance - based on the Wind River Indian Reservation at Fort Washakie, Wyoming - uses a community-centered approach to support food sovereignty, river restoration, buffalo restoration, advocacy, and education.
Martel said the reservation's landscapes are ideal for protecting the Indigenous way of life.
"We have everything at Wind River that Yellowstone has, except Old Faithful," said Martel. "All of the buffalo, and grizzlies, and wolves, and bighorn sheep, and elk, and deer, and antelope - and all these other relatives that we have on this earth, are with us at Wind River."
The project is an Indigenous-centered organization of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes working with elders, young people and tribal leaders.
Martel said he hopes the new logo can capture the sentiments and energy felt when tribes are blessed with buffalo, their spiritual connection, and the power they bring to lodges, ceremonies, and overall well-being.
"This whole movement that we're seeing now, of restoring buffalo and restoring our heritage and restoring our energy, our spiritual strength," said Martel, "that's really powerful."
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By Kate Mothes for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration
In Norway, the hardingfele, or the Hardanger fiddle, is deeply woven into the nation's cultural tapestry. From the earliest known iteration made in 1651 by Ole Jonsen Jaastad, the instrument originates from its namesake region, the western district of Hardanger, where it was traditionally used to play wedding music, dances, and other songs.
A Hardanger fiddle looks at first glance like an intricately ornamented violin, with a fingerboard and tailpiece often inlaid with mother-of-pearl, ebony, or bone. It is more lightweight, however, with four slimmer strings, ink decorations on the wooden body, and the scroll at the end often carved into the likeness of a dragon or wild animal.
Another key element of a Hardanger fiddle is the addition of sympathetic strings, which sit in a layer below those that the bow touches, vibrating when the instrument is played and adding a richness to the sound. "You are playing, generally, two notes at once whenever you play a Hardanger fiddle," says luthier Robert "Bud" Larsen, a side effect of the instrument's flat bridge.
Larsen, who is based in Brainerd, Minnesota, was introduced to the art of fiddle-making and restoration with the help of local violin-maker Gunnar Helland. Helland had emigrated to the U.S. from Norway in 1901. After stints in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and Minneapolis, he established a shop in Fargo, North Dakota, to carry on his family's craft tradition.
"Our family moved into the same building where Gunnar had his shop," Larsen says. "We hung out a lot, and I was very interested in what he was building. When I was in the seventh grade, he gave me an old violin and helped me through the process of restoring it."
Larsen's lifelong love for the instrument was born. Over the next several decades, he would build at least 40 Hardanger fiddles and restore more than twice that many.
Preserving, and Evolving, Tradition
Troyd Geist, state folklorist of North Dakota, is a big fan of traditional culture and history. He focuses not only on the heritage of traditional arts but also sees the potential for craft to contribute to health and a sense of wellbeing. He heads an apprenticeship program where a master artist is paired with a younger person in order to pass along knowledge.
Geist is fascinated by how U.S. makers have gradually evolved the Hardanger fiddle over time. Though the instruments have maintained many of their recognizable features, their designs have become distinctly American.
"For instance, the fiddles in Norway would have different rosemaling designs and different flowers that they really focus on," Geist says. "And the head above the fret is often carved, in Norway, like a lion or a dragon. They do that here, too, but they also carve, instead of a lion or a dog head on the end of it, a buffalo head."
Larsen and others in the community who are passionate about the Hardanger fiddle liken the craft to being similar to language.
"We know that a language that is not willing to change will soon die," says Larsen, who was a linguist in Papua New Guinea for more than 20 years before turning to fiddle making. "If people say a language should be prescriptive and you should write it the way the dictionary tells you to, and speak it that way, then the language will die out because it can't change. And that's the same with Hardanger fiddle music. Because new music is being written, and it's being used in different genres as well, it will stay with us for a long time because the music has learned to adapt to people's interests and cultures."
Both Geist and Larsen agree that it's important to continue to teach others how to make the fiddles, which can sometimes take a novice apprentice up to two years to complete. Some makers seek to protect their secrets, but "if you're not willing to share broadly and freely, the tradition is going to die," Geist says.
A Generational History
First comes the making of a fiddle and then, of course, comes the playing. Arts Midwest's GIG Fund recently supported an event at the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County (HCS) where more than 220 people attended a concert performed by the Fargo Spelemannslag.
A spelemannslag is a group of folk musicians, often dominated by fiddles.
The wintertime concert featured a song written two centuries ago by Eirik Medås. "Eirik's direct descendant, a high school student named Elsa Ruth Pryor, played a new song that she wrote herself, on a Hardanger Fiddle that she made herself," says Markus Krueger, programming director of HCS.
"Minnesota and North Dakota are the two most Norwegian states in America. For a lot of people in our community, this is the music of their childhood that they remember their parents and grandparents playing," Krueger says, reflecting on the significance of the event. "It's a symbol of Norwegian culture and heritage, and even more than that, it's a symbol of Midwest culture."
The concert featured performances by Bud Larsen and Loretta Kelley, the president of the Hardanger Fiddle Association of America. It was a meaningful showcase of a living tradition, passed down through generations.
"The immigrants brought their fiddles with them, and they kept playing them in America, says Krueger. "They kept making them in America. We still make them and play them today."
Kate Mothes wrote this story for Arts Midwest.
Disclosure: Arts Midwest contributes to our fund for reporting on Arts and Culture, and Native American Issues. If you would like to help support news in the public interest,
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By Ann Thomas for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mark Moran for Iowa News Service reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration
Natural light floods through large windows lining nearly every wall of the Trappist Caskets production facility in northeast Iowa, wrapping it in view of New Melleray Abbey's 3,400 acres, 1,200 of which are abundant in timber.
The storage racks at Trappist Caskets, designed and fabricated by master welder Brother Dennis, stretch six caskets tall between the concrete floor and the rafters that span the length of the shipping bay. This area manages the ebb and flow of production and shipping. The goal is to keep them full at all times. Today, there are several vacancies-demand has been very high.
At first glance, the racks are overwhelming for their enormity, and the realization that each space represents an individual awaiting preparation for burial adds more gravity.
A wealth of midwestern natural resources, combined with the Trappist monks of New Melleray's need to financially support themselves through their own labor and maintain a life steeped in prayer, inspired its entry into casket manufacturing in 1999.
Each casket crafted by monks and employees at this facility in Peosta, Iowa, captures unrepeatable characteristics in walnut, oak, cherry or pine grain. But one casket on the shipping bay's floor this Tuesday stands out. Its design and far deeper red draw the eye quicker than all other cherry caskets in the shelving.
The lone casket served its owner first as a coffee table, its cherry wood aging in open air for 20 years. Rings left by glasses mark the lid's finish. With upholstering completed this morning, and its lid newly reinforced, this old cherry casket is on its way to the funeral home so as to serve the priest in death who purchased it. He will be buried in it within the next few days. Paul Pankowski, Production Manager for Trappist Caskets, notes it isn't uncommon for caskets to be purchased and turned into bookshelves, wine racks, and coffee tables, then for owners to eventually be buried in them.
The design for these have evolved since the cherry wood one was built. Recent interest in green burials necessitates biodegradable joinery and alternate handles, meaning designs continue to evolve.
Pankowski oversees all aspects of production on the circuitous workshop floor, and can identify by eye where boards moving their way through originated. He points out lighter tones that range through black walnut of Wisconsin and Missouri. Iowa's distinguishes itself from all others by richness of its depth, and the incomparable hardness of central Iowa's oak dulls blades quicker than any other wood. The whiteness and clarity of pine harvested from the monks' own land is easily recognizable in contrast to pine sourced from other areas.
For Brother Joseph, it's hard to believe the growth of this work. From the production facility's modest beginnings in the monks' barns to the far reaching ties maintained through prayer and memorial tree plantings for those buried in Trappist Caskets and their families-the span is remarkable.
Brother Joseph, who began in those barns in 2006 and continues to work in varied roles from woodworking to upholstering in the new facility completed in 2007, recalls how cramped and dusty the barns were. He stresses how critical the employment of nearby community members is now - to meet the high demand for their caskets and to ensure the monks' freedom to maintain the rhythm of monastic life.
The monks' concern for land stewardship led Brother Joseph to pursue the hire of their full-time forester, John Schroeder, six years ago. Schroeder is initiating large scale prairie restoration and reforestation projects which prioritize the needs of New Melleray Abbey's land and creeks lying on the cusp of Iowa's Driftless region. It is an area spared by the grinding weight of glaciers moving out of the midwest around 12,000 years ago. This land's delicate ecological balance and exceptionally rich soil are responsible for traits found in the trees that grow here.
Among the most grateful customers Trappist Caskets serves are parents who must bury their children. The monks offer these caskets free of charge. Funeral homes and hospitals are quick to connect families in these tragic circumstances to the monks. The Federal Trade Commission's Funeral Rule ensures that consumers are not limited to caskets offered by funeral homes for purchase and use, and anyone is free to contact Trappist Caskets, whose staff is always ready to guide families through meeting needs.
Trappist Caskets' employees can relate to this devastating experience. Production Manager Paul Pankowski and his wife lost a premature baby, and his first-hand knowledge infuses compassion in every step of the production process. His three-decade long experience within strict quality parameters of the custom kitchen cabinetry business prior to working at Trappist Caskets also informs his approach to all he does.
While the end goal of both industries is perfection, his purpose, as well as all who work at Trappist Caskets, is not to turn a profit, but rather offer an encounter with beauty and consolation during a time of grief.
Ann Thomas wrote this story for Arts Midwest.
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