I have tried countless times to explain to my children how important the video store was to growing up in my era.  They love movies as much as I do, but to them the video store is as relevant as a sock hop is to me. 

Back in 1980, I was an eleven-year-old kid growing up in suburban North Florida when video stores began to emerge. It’s odd thinking back on them; a part of life that came, dominated, and went, as I hope I will be able to say about Facebook before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

I still remember going with my dad to the electronics store to get our first VCR on a Saturday morning sometime in the early 1980’s when I was around 7 or so. My dad was set on a top loader before we left, but the salesman talked him into a front loader and assured him that these are the latest models and work well. It was a very huge GE model and was still not even cable ready.