Exhaustion clings to me like a heavy cloak as I roll into Astoria, Oregon just before 9 p.m. But my eyes stay alert, scanning side streets for a place to rest my bones.
Then, like a beacon through the coastal fog, a burst of neon draws my attention. It proclaims “Video Horizons.” My road fatigue suddenly takes a back seat to curiosity.
I steer towards the glow and notice the doors of the shop ajar. Nostalgia begins washing over me. Movie posters stretch across shiny windows. It can’t possibly be a video rental place, I think. They’ve been history every since Blockbuster, Movie Gallery, and Hollywood Video went under.
I park the van and head toward the building, soon stepping over the threshold. Nothing stirs. Then, a body rushes out.
“You guys still open?”
“Yeah, but just for a handful of minutes more.”
The store clerk approaches. His shirt sleeves are rolled into cuffs and his shirttail protrudes over his jeans. His voice has a gravely quality. I imagine him doing a weekly radio gig about the Golden Age of Video. He would later prove to have those kinds of smarts.
I survey the interior with the curiosity of Charlie Bucket entering Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.
“Who even owns a VHS tape player anymore?”
Chris grins, though his attention is given to last-minute store closing details.
“We’ve got members who come in here every day, browse the collection, and take tapes home with them.”
He finds my fascination with this relic of the analog age amusing and offers a tour of the place. Wooden bookcases, six shelves high, stretch over worn carpeting. Against the walls, shelves climb eight feet high. Each shelf is curated like books in a library: action, anime, and comedy find their place alongside sci-fi, musicals, and Westerns. And then I realize they’re all DVDs and Blu-rays, a striking departure from the store’s opening-day inventory in 1984 when the shelves were weighed down entirely by plastic cassette cases.
When I ask about VHS tapes he says they line the bottom of each shelf and that worn-out tapes are on sale in the back. He leads me to the sale section, I estimate about 1,800 titles in neat rows. Well-worn spines come into view: Space Cowboy, Three Days of the Condor, Scent of a Woman. They cost a buck a piece.
Fatigue from the day’s long drive catches up with me again.
“Do you know where I can park my van for a night’s sleep?”
Chris scratches his scraggly beard.
“Go ahead and pull up front. We don’t open till 10. Nobody will bother you there.”
With those reassuring words, I pull the van into a slot near the door and prepare for bed. Beneath the bright neon, a sense of unease suddenly overcomes me. Can I truly feel safe at a place where video killed the radio star and digital wiped-out video?