Working at the Drive In Theatre

One of the coolest jobs I ever had was when I worked at the SEMRI (Silvis, East Moline, Moline, Rock Island) drive in located on 10th street in Silvis Il. I worked there in the summers of 1971 and 1973, when drive ins were the cool way to spend a Friday or Saturday night. Now, the SEMRI was different than the MEMRI because the MEMRI was in Milan, hence the anagram...

The SEMRI, MEMRI and three other drive ins in the Quad Cities were owned by Redstone Theatres (owned by gazillionare Sumner Redstone) and took a great deal of pride in what they did. In fact, they were sticklers about everything...attitude, cleanliness, and appearance (I had to cut my hair). This drive in held 800 cars and my first memorial day in 1971, "Vanishing Point" with Barry Newman was playing and the place SOLD OUT! The admission was cheap; two bucks or a carload for eight bucks. I lived about two miles from there and would ride my 10 speed there, do my job, then ride home every night very late (and I would weekly get stopped by the cops for curfew until they knew my name). My job from March until October consisted of a number of things...directing people into the right cashier lane in front. That was the place that I got to see a number of cool cars. Camaros, Challengers, Chevelles, GTOs, Barracudas and usually got into a conversation with a number of the drivers (and got a free look at some beautiful girls, hey come on, I was 15)! I patrolled the fence, to make sure no one jumped it, although in 1973, I found a hole in the fence and charged everyone a joint to come on in. I had quite the collection for later in the evening! Yes, I was the guy who would chase you down when I saw your friend getting out of the trunk and I was the guy that kept people from sneaking in the exit. One night, I caught a whole carload of people sneaking in and I told them that federal law required that I had to charge them double the admission price. They paid, I kept the 16 dollars. Working concessions were a blast, seeing these people come in the bright lights half asleep, high or JBF'd. Everything stopped at intermission, and you reported to the concession stand. There were fights and sometimes lines out the door. One of my favorite jobs was cleaning the lot the following day after a huge night. I found syringes, bags of feces,(those were fun in July and August) money (once I found a $50 bill, too bad for them), drugs, anything and everything you could imagine. I would set the radio up, get my trash cans and work for 4-5 hours during the day. My workday would be 12noon to 4pm cleaning the lot and then 6p-1 or 2a working the movie. All for $1.15 an hour in 1971 and $1.35 an hour in 1973. There were a few movies that would be released and then held over for a number of weeks. I remember when "Woodstock" came out, we played it for four straight weeks. I Know every line of dialogue by heart. "Live and Let Die" was another biggie. "Big Jake" sold us out over the WHOLE labor day weekend. I really enjoyed the gig but by then I got a 20 cent raise to join my mother in the restaurant business. The land it sat on is now a subdividion called "Semri Acres" or something like that. The name lives on. In the Quad Cities, the name SEMRI is legandary.