Goodbye, Blockbuster

Palm Coast Observer
Opinion

It wasn’t even like I liked the place. In reality, I probably hadn’t even set foot inside of it in more than five years.

But when the world opened for business Monday morning, Jan. 30, and the Blockbuster next to Publix in the Palm Harbor Shopping Center stayed closed — the way it would then remain forever — Palm Coast became just a little less the place it was when I grew up in it.

The city changed. And change is always messy.

Sliding locks out of movie cases in the store’s last day, a clerk scratched beneath his glasses and said that Blockbuster had opened in 1994. I was 7 years old then. Palm Coast was unincorporated. Stickers reminded you to rewind video cassettes before pushing them back through return slots.

That was before the Town Center, before Super Walmart and before almost everything on the city’s south side. That was when the building that used to be Sandy’s Seafood, and before that Lucky Buffet, and before that Pizza Hut would give you free kid-sized pies for reading in the Book It! program.

Almost my entire life, I lived within two miles of the place. And most of that time, the old blue and gold was a fixture and destination, one of the first big chains in town.

It was where you went before sleepover parties. Where you rode your bike, after using your allowance to buy subs at the old A&L Deli. It was where you begged your parents to spend an unthinkable $7 on a couple night’s videogame rental.

Think about it in modern terms and the model makes no sense. Limited library. Late fees. Short rental times. Crazy-expensive candy.

Still, now that it’s gone, I can’t help but see a value in walking down aisles instead of scrolling through screens.

You could spend a full hour in there sometimes, moving slowly, barely walking the rows with your first girlfriend, debating titles. Remember: You had to choose carefully; this was going to be your night. And without even knowing it, just by picking up cases and putting them down, you’d learn about each other.

There’s something romantic in the inefficiency of it all. A store like Blockbuster could never survive in the 21st century.

That fact was driven home last week, when everything inside the store — all of it — was gone. The place was gutted. The middle racks were history. All that was left was the perimeter, lined with covers and art, every piece signifying just another chunk of inventory to unload, each for only three bucks a pop.

Blu-ray, DVD, it didn’t matter. They were selling the shelves, the counters. There were no rules. The place was like the Wild West. Heaven. Disney World.

Scanning the covers, I tried to contain my excitement as the pile in my arms grew taller. Two movies, four, eight, 10 … I capped it at 14, then threw in a 50-cent Sour Punch for good measure.

Final price: $35.

Things couldn’t have been going better. This was my year. I got out my cell phone and sent nonsense texts to friends (Matt Clay: “Blockbuster … !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”).

It wasn’t until checkout that all that other stuff hit me, the stuff about memories and time and the way things used to be.

“Nice stack!” the woman at the counter said, as I slid my movies toward her.

“I went a little crazy,” I told her, smirking. But deep down, I knew what she was thinking: that I was a traitor and a war profiteer. So much of my childhood was here, right between these walls, she must have thought, and all I cared about was getting a deal.

She had to have been thinking about the outside of the store just then, that tacky rounded blue awning, and how I must have driven past it a million times in my life. It was there for me, a constant, more familiar than my old bus stop, my best friend’s house, my third-grade class.

And now, the facade was defaced in massive yellow sale signs.

Her lip seemed to curl in anger. And you don’t even care.

“CLOSEOUT SALE,” the signs outside read. “STORE IS MOVING.”

“Moving.” I couldn’t help but question the choice of words. The whole town knew better. Soon, Blockbuster would go all-digital. And soon after that, probably, it would go away, scatter somewhere into the past, into memory, into “that place we used to go when we were young.”

And in that sense, maybe it was only moving. Maybe nothing dies. Maybe, even if the lights are off and the inside’s empty and there’s no one there to greet you at the door, home will always still be home.

Then again, I jumped the sinking ship first chance I got, traded it for Netflix and gave up my right to be sentimental.

It was just an obsolete old video store anyway, right? The carpet was dirty. The selection was bad. That old girlfriend turned out to be a tourist.