Good Bye, Radio Shack

RadioShack’s bankruptcy filing came as a shock to no one. I didn’t know anyone who shopped there, and I know I hadn’t walked into one of its stores since sometime in my early 20s. Hell, eight years ago The Onion published an article titled “Even CEO Can’t Figure Out How RadioShack Still In Business.” Other than that, RadioShack’s television spots during the past holiday season, which featured various ‘80s icons and “Weird Al,” were just about the only things that even made me take any note of the chain over the past decade or so. Yet, when the first news of RadioShack’s imminent demise started surfacing a few days before it went into bankruptcy, I became a little teary-eyed. Until I read the news of its impending demise in PCWorld and PCMag, I never properly appreciated just how much of my childhood nostalgia is rooted in it.

For many of my formative years, Pops worked for the chain—which I still think of as “Radio Shack” (two words)—as a store manager. I believe he really enjoyed working there because I have no other explanation for the picture of his first RadioShack paycheck in the top of a photocube that sat on his desk for nearly 30 years. Because he liked it, he enjoyed bringing his grandkids there. One of the stores he managed was still open at the time of the bankruptcy announcement, and thanks to those visits, my mental image of the store’s interior is now permanently over 35 years old. I’m thankful that he took me there for many reasons, but none more so than I got to experience a vacuum tube tester firsthand. I’m sure that’s part of the reason I still associate RadioShack with the smell of ozone emanating from electronics.

Pops made sure we didn’t just visit the store. While he worked there, and for many years thereafter, RadioShack items were a near ubiquitous presence in my life. For every radio-controlled vehicle, siren helmet, stuffed animal with a radio embedded in its belly (at least the dials were in the belly region and not the chest), electronic tchotchke, Realistic-branded audio component encased in a imitation walnut causing, and store-branded battery I recall, I’m sure that there are at least two more I’ve forgotten. The batteries have a special place in my childhood memories; I don’t recall how it started, but I’ll never forget the schoolyard argument over whether RadioShack batteries were just as good the name brands at other stores.

Aside from the batteries, a few items in particular really stood out. Most notably, the first cassette player/recorder I owned was a bright red Realistic (RadioShack’s house brand) designed for kids, and the first album I played on it incessantly was one Pops recorded for me on a blank RadioShack cassette: the soundtrack to The Sting. Although it’s certainly not the type of thing you’re going to hear playing in the background while eating a meal at Ruby Tuesday, I’m positive that hearing the opening notes to “The Entertainer” will forever cause me to immediately recall needing to press really hard on the big black buttons on top of the player and the loud clunking noises the beast made while it dropped the playback head into place and securely locked the cassette into position.

Although I used other Realistic audio devices for longer periods—most notably, my first stereo receiver, which I owned through my late 20s—the other item that really stands out was a Realistic police scanner that sat on top of Pops’s stereo cabinet (also a Realistic). He turned that thing on every morning, for reasons I could never fathom. See, he lived out at the outermost edge of the exurbs, and there was an amazing paucity of police activity out there. Nothing ever happened, and even if something did, what were we going to do about it? I suspect it was there for nothing other than collecting potential gossip about the people who lived in his housing development.

Amazingly, he never owned a “Trash 80” or supplied me with one, but that was likely a function of when he was employed there. However, I do have fond memories of walking into the local RadioShack in the mid-to-late ‘80s, finding a display system, launching BASIC, and then placing the computer in an infinite loop of printing something embarrassingly juvenile on the screen. Nor could I ever forget that RadioShack hired Isaac Asimov as their paid celebrity endorser for the system—I’m fairly certain that I was the only person in my middle school who thought this was awesome. Ah, the joys of nerdom.

But, I digress.

The lifecycle of beloved national brand is just a part of the capitalistic landscape. A companies die for a variety of different reasons, but inept or ossified management almost always leads the way. What you rarely see, however, is what John Oliver illustrated in a segment on Last Week Tonight: the tawdry, gleeful disrespect displayed by our national media as it toyed with the news of RadioShack’s demise. Let’s not forget either that the closing of over 2,100 retail locations means thousands of people are losing their jobs. That’s certainly not a laughing matter. In fact, it just adds to the overall melancholy I feel over the store’s demise.

I haven’t used any RadioShack items for years. In fact, I couldn’t even tell you the last device from there that I owned, though I suppose it was the Realistic stereo receiver. However, I now have Pops’s old photocube, and it sits on my workdesk. The picture of his first check from RadioShack is still in the top of it, as are all the other pictures he originally placed in there over 35 years ago, and it will remain there, in its place of honor. Even though that photo is not an actual item from my childhood, in some ways having it is better than still owning that clunky, red audio cassette player.