Freddy in Space: The End of a Video Era

Last July I observed an old school video shop not too far from my house called Star Video that I was appalled to happen was still stocked primarily with VHS tapes (sun faded and all), both for sale and for rental - check out the spot I made near the tapes I got from there.It was the form of space I had thought was totally extinct, but there it was, a keepsake from the past managing to somehow stay in line in the present.

bout 6 months later, in January of this year, one of my local papers ran a back story on this very shop that talked about how business had slowed over the years but that the range still managed to take a loyal client base that kept it afloat.Being published right about the same sentence as I got word of a combo Blu-ray/VHS player on the marketplace and a new horror film, House of the Devil, being released on VHS, I was riding on a nostalgic high - were VHS and mom and pop video stores making a comeback?!A search at today's cover of the same local paper that ran the floor less than a twelvemonth ago brought me back to a sad reality ; this form of shoes just cannot possibly be in this day and age.Yep, after two decades of existence in business, Jerry Mulholland closed up shop this past weekend. He opted to not renew his lease after his 17 yr old daughter, who worked at the shop, went off to college."If i'm not employing someone from my family, it's not deserving it", Jerry said for the reasoning behind this decision, a conclusion that is also even to the fact that he operates a landscaping company that takes up lots of his sentence and of course, that line has declined heavily since he bought the workshop in 1990. He held a loss out of business sale over the weekend (if I but heard about this before today. and then boxed up the end of his tapes and DVDs, which are in storage until they are sold off at flea markets.An empty shop is all that stands in Star Video's former location, just wait to be turned into something much more relevant to the times.Jerry, you had a big run and i'm gonna miss stepping foot into your time machine of a store that brought me directly backwards to my childhood.Though I thinking about passing in there more oft than I actually did make the trip out there, it was always comforting knowing you and Star Video were but a little drive away.With a Blockbuster near me going under a few weeks back and now this, it's becoming pretty clear that the years of video rental stores are incredibly numbered, with machines, the net and video on demand services more than ready to get over the reigns.I really feel sad for the youngsters growing up in these current times who will not recognize the joys of walking into a store stocked with thousands of movies and hand choosing one to pass their night with.Though todays technologies make renting easier and cheaper, that see is simply something that sadly has been baffled in the action and cannot be replaced by any technological advancements."I'd much rather get a video there than from a box." - Lisa Federico, a longtime loyal Star Video customer. To all the video shops that have suffered similar fates, you are missed.