The way things are going, Sears stores, in general, will be retro history. Worst case of mismanagement in business.

Blockbuster Video





Netflix killed Blockbuster and according to my understanding, my Blockbuster store closed its doors in 2010 because Netflix invaded our area in 2009 and expanding rapidly. By time 2012-13 rolled around it's died and I considered Blockbuster to be a most recent thing to go RETRO so quickly and back in March 2010 and I totally forgot to return The Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World DVD and because I was so busy in the month of February, it was Valentine Day, My Birthday, and spent some time in Vancouver B.C. for a week and I tried to return this DVD in the early part of March of 2010 and the store was closed for good.





They even posted a sign - if you have unreturned DVD or TAPE ... forget about returning it and keep the DVD as our compliments. I was stunned when I saw that notice and took home that DVD and by the way - I still have that DVD as a reminder of the closing of Blockbuster VIDEO.





So, after reading that post ... I threw away my Membership Card and found out more details of why Blockbuster was closing its doors because NETFILX killed BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO. I rented over 300 Videos at Blockbuster and gave them weekly business for a good part of 3 years and when I retired from work - I stopped renting videos and went to a different directions borrowing DVD's from friends and all that.

Anyway, it's sad to see this thing no longer exists and now there are fewer than 10 Blockbuster left and ... Three of the handful of remaining Blockbuster locations are in Alaska, where long winters and slow WiFi help keep a couple of stores open.

I have a friend of mine seen one in Alaska and they are doing good business there and it's booming and sales continues to do well in Alaska.

Retro Furniture





Pictured above - I have three older brothers and we all had dressers like this one above you and it's color coded for certain things and I don't have a great memory of how we did it then - but my Mother did the laundry and actually puts away our clean clothes in our dressers and we had a great system going and had these dressers from 1960 to 1976. By time 1976 rolled around - I was the only kid living in that house and my next oldest was downsizing his clothes and got himself a smaller dresser for his room that he had for himself and we got rid of all of these dressers and donated them to the Salvation Army.

I got myself new furniture for my bedroom and I had a room for myself from Junior High to the time that I moved out of the house in 1985 when I got myself a real job/career. I don't have that furniture anymore because my parents wanted it so that they can convert my bedroom to a guest bedroom and they told me to get new furniture for my condo.





Pictured above - a table and four chairs - we got new furniture when my two older brothers left the house and we got ourselves a brand new Kitchen Nook and this picture is the closest thing that we had back then and made it cool back then. We ate all our breakfasts and lunches there and it's quite sturdy back then. We remodeled our Kitchen in 1968 and that's the time that my two older brothers were working too much and did not spend much time with us from 1968 to 1972 and they were gone by then, because both of them graduated out of college, one of them joined the Marines Corps and the other one started working at Sears and working full-time plus overtime and that's when he got himself a cheap apartment and save his money for engagement ring and marriage to his girlfriend back then.

I didn't see much of them back then and that's prompts my Parents to rethink and modernize our Kitchen to make it more presentable for them and make it easier for the four of the us living together back then.





Pictured above is exactly what we had for our Patio Furniture back then and we brought new furniture and one of my job is to constantly clean it every spring, repaint the rust, and get it spanking good conditions that took me a couple of days of doing so. We had a pink and yellow set ... the Pink Set for my Mother's Bridge Group that likes to play Bridge in the outdoors in a patio that's near our garage and the Yellow Set is in the other patio location facing a great view of the water and Mount Rainier.

My job every Spring from 1972 to 1985 ... is to maintain these two sets of furniture to good conditions and that's takes two days to do so. My Dad gives me generous supply of paint, cleaning supplies, and other things to get it back to brand new conditions and my Mom creates new cushions for the seat pads as well. We usually do this every May just in time for Summer Season and it was a pretty easy job to do.

That's so cool Robert! ... Thanks for sharing it!

Retro Radios that my Family Uses




The Scott 350 was the world's first FM Stereo receiver. Manufactured in 1961


The above radio is at my Brother's place and he uses it to listen to Mariners Game when they aren't on Television and this radio that my Dad purchased in 1962 during the Seattle World's Fair and he was happy to make this purchase so that he can listen to the radio anytime he wants and often listen to it when he does woodworking in the basement.

He played that radio on an average of 8-10 hours a week and still works fine like it was back in 1962.

My brother has to buy occasional small tubes and parts and they still have them today and sad to say this that in 2020 - the manufacturer informed him that the parts will no longer be available to him at that time.




Vintage Sony Model TR-1811 Transistor Radio, Broadcast Band Only (MW), 6 Transistors, Made In Japan, Circa 1965.


My Dad in 1966 bought four of these radios for his four sons for Birthday Gift back in 1966 when this radio was available at Radio Shack and only two of them still works today. Mine and my brother that lives in Houston that he gave to one of my brother for safekeeping. I don't listen to it today and it's pretty darn good radio back then and still is. My brother takes it to the Mariners Game with an earpiece so that he can get all the action both sight and sound at the game.

They were all sold at Radio Shack ...





My Dad's Favorite Store to go to ...

RCA and SONY Portable TV's


For Kitchen and Bedroom Use only ... later we got one for my Dad's work area in the basement of our house.




RCA 1975 Portable TV
We had this television in the Kitchen for 10 years - this one was black and white. Very good television and works great back then.




RCA 1976 Portable TV
My Dad bought me a yellow TV like this and he got himself a white one for the basement for woodworking for two for 1 sale at Radio Shack. Both TV's were color and had a great reception back then. My bedroom at the time had a yellow, white, and brown colors ... that's was my choice back then ...

Later, during Christmas ... my Mom got one for Kitchen in White on sale at Radio Shack a gift from her husband that year.




SONY 1985 Portable TV
To replace the 1975 television set in the Kitchen and my Dad frankenstein that TV so that Cable in its infancy was allowed to carry the signals to that TV through a kit from Comcast that they had at the time when Cable first started out in our area.

We had that one for 15 years .... then he replaces this TV with this one below ..





SONY Trinitron 
This one got move to another location and again my Dad made it cable ready in 2000 and that's the last TV in the Kitchen until my Mom and Dad started having health issues that lead to my Mom having Alzheimer's and my Dad had several strokes and dementia problems and we took away that TV and gave it to a dear friend of ours back then. 

My Dad was a SONY television fan and always bought its TV's ...