Hi Everyone,
I owe you all a long belated update on Sundown Cinema. As many of you know, last summer we lost our permission to use the parking lot that had been the home of Sundown Cinema for nine years running and we put together a plan to move the movie series to a nearby location. The spot that was highest on our list was the Orchard City Green, which is the courtyard area between Campbell's City Hall and the Campbell Library.
Over the course of the past year, we've been in a back and forth discussion with the City of Campbell over the use of this space for Sundown Cinema. The conversation has been productive and we were making progress toward getting an agreement in place, but the process was taking longer than we expected and time was running out. It was getting to the point that by the time that we expected to have a proposal approved by the City Council, our lead time for making preparations would have been shorter than we were comfortable with considering the magnitude of the changes that we're dealing with.
This means that we'll again be without movies in Downtown Campbell this summer, but we haven't given up. Our new plan is to have the terms that we were seeking for this year applied to next summer and get the proposal approved by the City Council by the end of summer to give us plenty of time to make preparations for 2015.
Unfortunately, our road back was made harder recently when we learned of the death of our AV technician and most dedicated volunteer, Ken Morgan. To remember him, we'd like to share a few thoughts with the people he spent his Friday evenings with for 5 summers (2 as a fan and 3 as our AV Technician).
Ken Morgan had an interesting way of signing his emails. Like a lot of people, his email signature listed credentials and titles that he held, but then it was followed by this: "Certified Crazy Person. I started life with nothing, I still have most of it left."
That was indeed a fitting summary of him. Ken Morgan didn't seem like he had much money, but he also never seemed to be in want of it. He was a shaken up bag of odds and ends and always had some unusual story or thought to share. He had a thing for classic cars, but not the kind of classic cars you're thinking of. He was an affictionado of the Ford Pinto. Yes, as in Ford "KA-BOOM" Pinto and he owned several (most of them didn't work anymore).
When his mom passed away recently at an advanced age, it freed him from his duties as a caregiver and he shared some of his retirement plans with us in an email. He wanted to go to The Capri Swarm (he made the effort to italicize that), an annual event for owners of Mercury Capri's. Then he'd help plan a high school reunion before moving to Hawaii to live out the rest of his days on a sailboat and teach Ai Chi in a tide pool.
Ai Chi is aquatic Tai Chi. I'm still not sure what that is, but apparently he was a licensed instructor in it.
The man was a fun guy to be around. He was a riot, an understated and succinct riot if there was such a thing. Most of all for all the unpredictable things about him, there was one thing we learned that was very predictable about him. He was dependable. He was so dependable and punctual on Friday nights that you'd think he was getting paid to help us.
In more ways than one, Sundown Cinema is going to miss Ken Morgan.