The early days of E-commerce were a new and exciting time. Society had found a way to waste money without leaving the comfort of their multi-mortgaged homes. As is my nature, I was cautious at first. I’d grown up on mail-order merchandise that required a person to call a toll-free number with a major credit card, or drop a check into the mail, destined for a P.O. Box often in an obscure city. Then came the requisite 4-6 week wait. An above-average chance that the consumer had been rooked existed until the items actually arrived.
I got on board when I discovered I could buy compact discs without driving across town and order books not available on the shelves locally. Impulse purchases became a mere series of clicks away.
eBay was unique in that it offered a sales platform to the highest bidder. It was an online auction that tested what the market would actually bear. It also became a searchable warehouse of nostalgia. If there was something from your past you yearned to reacquire, somebody likely had it and was willing to sell it.
The first eBay auction I participated in was for a VHS cassette of the film Up the Creek, a largely forgotten buddy comedy from the 1980s starring Tim Matheson and Stephen Furst. Though obscure, the movie had been a family favorite. At least among my sister, father, and me. My mother wasn’t crazy about it. Too much sophomoric vulgarity for her taste.
The Christmas our family got its first VCR was one of the most memorable. Not only did we have this fascinating technology in our home, but we woke that morning to a delightful snowstorm. After the packages had been decimated and the wrapping cleaned up, my mother retreated to the kitchen to make breakfast. My sister busied herself with her new haul of toys. My dad sat in his chair and read the owner’s manual to the new VCR. He’d be the one to teach how to use it, but would retain principal ownership. As for me, I went back to my room, crawled into bed, and listened to my new copy of Yes’s Big Generator on my new Pioneer headphones as I watched the snow continue to pile up outside my bedroom window.
My mother, ever thoughtful, had made sure to include a package of blank VHS tapes under our tree. These would become a valued commodity in the subsequent years, as, like most families, we would build a library of movies recorded from premium cable. My dad discovered that on a certain setting, we could get three movies on a single tape. Our first VHS tape included Die Hard, Predator, and The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie.
 |
| As valuable as gold in the late 1980s |
As our collection grew, we added Up the Creek. By that time, the movie was largely out of rotation, and getting an unedited recording from HBO felt like a major coup. My dad was especially pleased with the get, and would often watch when there was nothing else on.
The problem with recordable cassettes was the threat of erasure. We seldom removed the recording tabs, as even five spare minutes at the end of a tape could be valuable. Over the years, we lost a few things to accidental erasure, but never anything significant. These accidents were written off as opportunity costs.
One cold evening, my dad suggested we watch Up the Creek. I was happy to oblige. I popped the cassette into the machine, grabbed a soda, and took my place on the sofa. My father and I didn’t often align when it came to movies, so it was cool to settle in and watch something together.
. At some point in the film, there was a glitch in the playback. Tim Matheson’s repartee was replaced on the screen by a baseball game. The Braves were hosting the Pirates at Fulton County Stadium in front of about 7500 fans. Rafael Ramirez was batting against Don Robinson, I think, with Pete Van Wieren on the call.
“What the hell?” yelled my dad from his recliner.
Ramirez fouled off a fastball.
“I don’t know,” I responded.
“You recorded over Up the Creek?” He was shocked with a hint of sorrow as if he’d found his pet parakeet dead.
Slider outside to Ramirez.
“No,” I said incredulously. “Why would I have recorded this?”
After another glitch, the movie resumed.
“At least you didn’t completely ruin it,” said my dad, continuing the baseless accusation. Due process was optional at our house, and though I’m almost positive I was not guilty, I wore this for years to come.
 |
| We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by. |
Our spoiled version was all we had for the next several years until the wonder of eBay came along. Something had triggered my memory of the movie, and I decided to take a look as this new dotcom was purportedly the place to find erstwhile treasures. To my delight, a used VHS cassette of the film was up for bid. The high bid was $7.50. I told my sister, who quickly set up an account. I wasn’t messing around and bid $8.00, but there were still four days left in the auction.
I was determined to win. I bookmarked the link on my home and work computers, checking in two or three times a day. Things were quiet until the day before the auction’s end, when the only other bidder upped the ante to $8.25. I could appreciate this person’s fandom, but I wasn’t about to lose out on this gem. The next day, with only a couple of hours left, I went big. I entered a bid for $10. Later that afternoon, I basked in victory as I monitored the end. For a brief moment, I felt like the New York Yankees, the Los Angeles Lakers, or the Dallas Cowboys. I’d identified something I wanted and money-whipped the competition. It wasn’t something I was used to. I haven’t done it again since.
We were eager to share our good fortune with our father.
“Cool,” he said upon first seeing the box. “I hope nobody recorded the goddamned Braves over it.”
 |
| Congratulations! You win! |
* * * *
Another film taken from our HBO subscription was a baseball movie called Long Gone. It starred William Petersen, Virginia Madsen, and Dermot Mulroney, was produced by HBO, and was based on the book by Paul Hemphill. It was a hit with the entire family, but especially my father and me, being baseball people. We watched it every time it aired, even after committing it to tape. We enjoyed it so much that we both found the long-anticipated and now classic film, Bull Durham, to be disappointing by comparison.
That copy from HBO stayed with me through four moves, even after VHS had become all but obsolete. I had searched for a digital copy, without luck, intermittently over the years. When my family made its most recent move to the suburbs, I made the decision to jettison my VHS collection. Many of the titles had been replaced by DVDs, but some were hard to part with. Long Gone among them.
Over the years, I’ve seen Bull Durham dozens of times and have come to really enjoy the film. Still, with each viewing, I was reminded of Long Gone and how much I loved it. Recently, that instigated another search that took me back to eBay. Though the business had moved away from the auction-only format, I had not purchased anything from the site since Up the Creek.
To my delighted surprise, there was a DVD of Long Gone available. This time it was simply for sale. No auction, no bidding, no monitoring. I jumped on it and let the anticipation build. I’d have my very own DVD in ten days.
Amazon has spoiled us. Next-day and two-day delivery have conditioned people not to want to wait. Obviously, instant gratification is very gratifying. The fact that a week and a half seems so long is just further evidence of how good we have things these days.
There was no auction to monitor, but there was a tracking number. Package tracking is sketchy with the post office, and the routing often is similar to that described in the Steve Miller Band song, “Rock’n Me” (Phoenix to Tacoma, Philadelphia, Atlanta, LA…). I eventually gave up on tracking and did my best to wait patiently for the projected delivery date.
One afternoon while at work, I got a delivery notification on my phone. My movie had arrived. I must be forgiven if my concentration wasn’t what it usually is that afternoon. At home, I raced to the mailbox and found the small, yellow packing envelope inside—with a stack of bills. Walking back up the driveway, I tore open the envelope and pulled out the DVD. Still sealed. I was giddy. I hadn’t seen this film in at least 25 years. On the back of the case was a large white sticker with big black Japanese letters. Suddenly, I was worried that I’d paid twenty dollars for a Region 2 DVD that I’d never be able to watch on this side of the globe.
 |
| So much winning! |
After dinner, I couldn’t wait to pop the disc in and watch the film for the first time in more than twenty years. My wife and daughter joined me on the sofa, both dubious about what they were going to see.
First, despite the foreign language on the packaging, the disc was compatible with our machine. Second, whatever restoration efforts–if any–were nominal. The picture looked like an old VHS recording transferred to a disc. The quality wasn’t terrible, but then again, we’ve been spoiled by high definition.
“What year was this made?” asked my wife.
“1987.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You ordered this?” asked my daughter. “How much did you pay for it?”
“It’s pretty rare,” I answered without answering.
“How much?” asked my wife. Her tone was more pointed the second time.
“Twenty.”
“Bruh!” said my daughter.
“You paid twenty dollars for this?” asked my wife with a hint of disappointment, as if I’d traded the family cow for a handful of beans. “Seven or eight, okay. But twenty?”
“Just watch,” I said, feeling embattled.
Two hours later, I was thoroughly pleased with my investment. My daughter had disappeared upstairs about twenty minutes into the movie to watch TikToks on her phone. My wife admitted the movie was okay, though she remained convinced I’d paid too much for it. I texted a photo of the video box to my sister. She corroborated my excitement. I also thought of my dad and how I’d reclaimed one of our treasures from the past, even if he wasn’t around to share it.
And without the goddamned Braves recorded over it.
