The Town That Was
I had the enjoyable experience of seeing myself on the big screen Saturday afternoon when a terrific new documentary about the Centralia mine fire, "The Town That Was," played at the Philadelphia Film Festival.
The photo is from the Q&A session that followed. I'm second from right. The others, from left, are Malinka Thompson-Godoy, producer, Tom Larkin, a former Centralia activist who also appeared in the film, Georgie Roland, co-director, Chris Perkel (with microphone), the other co-director, and at far right, Paul Henning, who composed the film's haunting score. I wrote the book "Unseen Danger: A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire," and covered Centralia as a newspaper reporter. I'm in the film to talk about the history of Centralia and the mine fire.
Centralia, Pa., was a small town with a long history and strong community ties. The mine fire started in 1962 when a clean-up project at the town dump went horribly wrong. Underfunded and occasionally misguided attempts by the state and federal government to stop the fire all ultimately failed. Beginning in the winter of 1979-80, the fire broke through the last barrier and began moving under Centralia, sending dangerous gases into homes and causing the ground to collapse without warning. Relocations of the most endangered residents began in 1981, and the entire town was relocated beginning in 1984.
But not all of them. Some chose to stay. About 12-15 mostly elderly people out of an original population of a little over a thousand remain, but also John Lokitis, Jr., who is in his early 30s. John lives alone in the former home of his grandparents and carries on a quixotic effort to keep a semblance of the town alive. But viewers of the film come to see the futility of the effort, and understand that what had been a real town with real families is gone forever. "The Town That Was" leaves many viewers with a sense of sadness or melancholy at what was lost.
The film drew extended applause from the audience in the Prince Music Theater. There were 200 advance ticket sales and the house was nearly but not entirely filled. Chris Perkel at one point asked how many former Centralia residents or people with ties to Centralia were in the audience, and about 10 hands went up. Among them were Joe Coddington, whose sister, Colleen Dwonczyk appears in the film, and Shannon Buckley, who I had last seen as a six-year-old in 1981. Her family was in that early group of relocatees. She suffered from asthma, which was aggravated by the mine fire gases in her home, and her parents appeared in Tony Mussari's 1983 PBS documentary "Centralia Fire."
Chris, Georgie, and Malinka invited Paul Henning, Tom Larkin and I onstage afterward, and we all answered questions from the audience. I think the Q&A would have gone on for another half hour at least, but we had to clear the house for the next film. All in all, it was a great experience. "The Town That Was" will screen one more time at the film festival, April 16 at 7 p.m. at International House in Philadelphia.