The Video Store When It Was New

One of the great memories that I have growing up was when VHS tapes came along. For my brother and I, this was a fairly big deal. We could now see films that we had no longer had access to in the theater. Now, I know HBO came along and we had seen movies on there as well. Yet, videos brought something new entirely. You could watch movies that were not on HBO. The other great thing came in the fact that you could now record movies from HBO. I remember going through the process of recording movies because nobody could ever figure out how to program the VCR correctly. You were best off simply sitting there and waiting for the movie to begin and getting it perfectly timed from when it started. HBO had this five-minute introduction for every feature film and you had to sit there and pretty much wait for the thing to get close before you would start it. It was almost like a kind of game. How close could I get to the actual movie without missing any of the movie? 

Now, let us get get back to video stores. In the beginning, there was no super video store that everyone went to like Blockbuster. There were all these little stores that popped up all over town. I remember that we would go all over the county to look for stores with the best selection. I would have to say that we got movies from at least six or seven places throughout the year. The cool thing that I remember about all of this was how new the video store phenomenon was at that time. There was so much potential when you went to the video store. You always went there with unbelievable hopes that the hottest new movie would be available. Yet, this is just not how things ever happened. You usually got a movie that you had seen in the theater or something that was noticeably older. This was because at the start of video stores, they were locally owned and owned minimal amounts of each movie. 

This all changed when Blockbuster came along. At first, Blockbuster video seemed like a fabulous idea. The first few times that we entered the store, it was unbelievable the number of copies each movie had. Yet, we gradually realized that this actually was not the case. They never had any movies in. I had a conspiracy theory that Blockbuster simply bought empty boxes of movies, but never actually bought the movies themselves. They would buy two copies of the movie, but they would have 10 boxes for that movie. Nobody ever disapproved this theory, so I believe that it actually holds water. Another memory that I have about Blockbuster video was trying to watch a movie as quickly as possible on a Sunday night before midnight and you had to return it. I remember feverishly rewinding the movie, so I could speed over to the store and get it in there before midnight. Sometimes I won this battle and sometimes I lost. 

As time went on, the newness and thrill of actually going to the video store was lost. Many of the movies that you found at the store could be found at home using pay per view or cable TV. Soon enough, DVDs replaced those films and now streaming video has replaced DVD pretty much. As a sign of the times, Blockbuster video is out of business. Yet, I will always remember those first days when going to the video store was an event and everything felt brand new.

Shoveling Snow

I remember growing up in Moline every year we would endure the first snowfall. I have certain memories of this time every year. This always meant my father would be gassing up the snowblower and doing our driveway. You could smell the gas that he put in that machine from a mile away. The beast of a snowplow was absolutely deafening as we sat inside the house intimidated by that noise, but we also found it pretty of noxious as kids. We were usually trying to watch TV and that loud ass snowplow was interrupting our ability to watch. I am not going to sugarcoat this, but we were pretty lazy. 

This one thing also seemed to happen just about every year much like the assurance that it would eventually snow at some point. The blade of the snowplow would hit a certain part of our driveway and cause all sorts of issues. Usually, the darn thing would just shut down. This happened every year, along with the guaranteed profanity laced tirade that my father would go on after the snowplow shut down. If he did anything well at all, it was his legendary cussing. It wasn't that he just knew more words than everybody else because he didn't. It was the rage in which he went on these tirades. The type of rage that made me as a kid go hide with the dog behind the couch. 

Yep, every year the snowblower would somehow limp through and finish the job, so we could eat dinner. I would always remember the smell that my father would bring in when he was finished. You never seem to forget the smell of sweat and snow. I believe that there is nothing like it in this world. A few years later, I moved in with my brother at my grandparent's old house. With the first snow of the year, when I first started staying there gave me insight into growing up. I realized how much it it truly sucks to shovel snow, how easy we really had it as kids, and doing Han Solo on Hoth impressions while we shoveled was a lot of fun.

Moline Soccer Club

Every spring in Moline as winter gradually melted away. One of the big things that occurred was the start of soccer season. I have so many memories of Moline Soccer Club and the really good times that we had on those teams. I would later go on to play on the traveling team and no longer play too much club soccer. Looking back, I discovered that I loved the club more than I loved the traveling team. The reason was that on the traveling team we always lost. The competition seemed much tougher and we were not very good anyway. In the club games, you actually had a halfway decent chance for success. 

Every spring you could smell the grass in the neighborhood as spring appeared all around us. I smelled that grass and instantly knew I better start practicing because soccer was starting. League games were played down at a complex of fields called New Green Valley. They had eight fields down there and I spent a good portion of my youth on those fields. I recall that there was a BMX dirt track on the other side of the woods at the far end. Sometimes you could even see races through the foilage. Now, the second year that I played, we had games at Old Green Valley, which was the former soccer complex. This emerged as the single most miserable year that I had in soccer. I soon realized that I was not very good at the game. The coach of my team made me realize that fact and it simply was not fun anymore. Before the next season, I vowed that I would improve. I began to kick the ball against our garage over and over until it got dark. The practice paid off as the next season was probably the single most enjoyable year I ever had in soccer. My performance that season was the reason that I even got selected to the traveling team. My coach from the previous year later came up to me and said that I was not the same player from before. I wanted to say, "Gee, thanks sir, for believing in me." 

As I have gotten older, one of the things that I remember about playing club soccer are many of the little things. Yes, I do still remember the goals that I scored and the shootouts I participated in. Yet, I can still remember what it felt like to walk in the gravel parking lot with your cleats on. You never wanted to run with your cleats over there because if you fell your knee was going to get scraped. I remember the concession stand being this really ugly green trailer, but the hotdogs seemed good. Speaking of food, the other great thing that I remember were the pizza parties at the end of the season. There was nothing greater than winning the club tournament and going to the local Happy Joe's to celebrate. The Pepsi always tasted a lot better when you were a winner. 

Yet, the game and the team were what made this so fantastic. I remember that I used to pray every season for a good team and I actually believed that it worked the first few years. There was no greater feeling than winning a game and sometimes going to watch my brother play in the afternoon. Yes, I do remember playing games in the very early morning hours, and I wonder today how in the heck I ever got up that early to play soccer. If you won, one sat there in the lawn chair next to mom as if you were a prince on his throne.