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.
The Road to Mooseville 
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