Film Frenulum

   The one remaining video store in my hometown closed this week.  It was a Blockbuster and having been a hater of them I never rented anything there.  The video stores I frequented were boarded up years ago.  The town library still lends movies and Best Video, which comes by it's name honestly, is still open a few towns over.  I bet there is a Redbox somewhere in town.  A kiosk though does not equal a video store.

   My father was early in buying a VCR.  So early that the nearest video store was a forty-five minute drive away.   So we didn't rent all too often.  My only real memory of the store is of staring at the box for Piranha 2: The Spawning and wishing we'd rent that instead of the kid friendly stuff we were most certainly picking up. 
    That all changed a year or two later when our town got it's first video store, The Video Library.  Located in the same plaza as Boss Pizza and the excellent used bookstore The Book Swap (both still there), The Video Library was a godsend. Video stores soon sprouted up all over the place and we of course had memberships at every one in the area.  Places like Reel to Reel, Robar's Video and Now Playing.  Then in the early 90's Tommy K's comes to town.  A large regional chain, Tommy forces out all the small mom and pop shops.  But it's ok, they have a huge selection of videos, even a shelf called Cult/ Off-Beat.  And they rent porn.  A few years later, Blockbuster comes to town.  No porn.  A well know history of renting censored versions of movies.  A family video store.  Tommy K's hangs in there for a few years, but eventual closes.  And now Blockbuster is on it's way out. Chapter 11.  I happened to be in town on the last day the store was open.  A closing video store is a great place to get cheap movies.  I can't resist the urge.  I bought a stack of DVDs.  They had no VHS.  I did get Piranha 3-D on Blu-ray though, so I guess the circle is complete.