The Ghost Of Black Friday's Past

Crucible Of Terror
Goodtimes Home Video (1971)
I picked this tape up from the VHS wall at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater over the weekend.  The first thing that I noticed was the fact that it was released by Goodtimes.  This is generally a red flag for tape collectors as they were notorious for putting out a poor quality product, but the Zayre price sticker on the cellophane caught my eye.

Standard Speaker - July 28, 1989

Zayre's was a discount department store chain that operated in the eastern United States from 1956 to 1990.  The Zayre's in my hometown was the west end anchor store in the Laurel Mall from 1973 to 1989.  My grandparents usually stopped in this store when they brought me to the mall when I was a kid.  That, combined with the fact that Zayre's disappeared when I was nine years old when the chain was purchased by Ames, are the reasons that the store is one of the things that I associate with my childhood in the 80's.

I flipped the Crucible Of Terror box over to read the description of the movie and was surprised to find that the original sales receipt was slipped into the cellophane on the back.

The receipt is from Zayre Store #240.  So far, I haven't been able to find out which city had Store #240, but the date of November 28'th, 1987 shows that it was purchased for $5.99 on the day after Thanksgiving.  This could possibly have been a gift that someone purchased while they were doing their Black Friday shopping.

Citizen's Voice - October 24, 1987

The closest Zayre's sales circular that I could find to the date that this movie was purchased was a newspaper insert that went out one week before Halloween, and this tape is listed as one of the items available for sale.

The Crucible Of Terror tape was part of a collection of horror movies that they were selling for $5.99.  The other movies named in the circular are Little Shop Of Horrors, Night Of The Living Dead, Horror Express, Alice Sweet Alice, and Psychomania.

The tape played about as well as I could have hoped from a Goodtimes release.  Most of their VHS releases that I've come across use as little tape as possible to fit the film in either LP or SLP speed, so there's a ton of static and tracking issues throughout the entire movie.  These tapes usually played like crap when they were brand new in the 80's and 90's, so I'm amazed that this copy of Crucible Of Terror that is almost forty years old played as well as it did.

 

I was going to encode it to share, but Flick Vault has already uploaded it with a much sharper picture quality.  It's a pretty good movie about a psychotic artist.  Click here or click play above to watch it.

Still Pullin' It

This truck was probably headed out of Harry's U-Pull It in West Hazleton.  I can't say I've ever seen the Red M&M holding a machine gun before.

Melts in your mouth, not in your hand

A Sub Above A Reasonable Price

Big Kahuna Cheesesteak
Jersey Mike's Subs - Hazleton, PA

When I was growing up, my grandfather used to tell me how candy bars cost a nickel when he was my age, except for the Chunky which cost a dime.  It was pretty hard for me to imagine.  They were around 35 to 50 cents each throughout much of my childhood, with the king size bars ranging from 79 to 99 cents.  Good luck finding one that cheap in 2025.

I fully recognize that I'm about to sound like my grandfather right now, but you could get a hoagie for about three bucks when I was a kid; maybe even less.  The price didn't go up too much in my adult life either.  I worked at a Subway restaurant in Wilkes-Barre when I was in college and all footlong hoagies cost five dollars... even the cheesesteak.  I'm not sure what Subway charges these days, but the Big Kahuna Cheesesteak from the Jersey Mike's shop next to the Starbucks and Ethos in my hometown costs $18.75.

Now I know inflation has gotten out of control and the braying jackass in the White House is only going to make things worse for all of us for the foreseeable future, but $18.75 for a hoagie from a fast food chain is absurd.  You can get a ribeye cheesesteak at Campo's on Ashburn Alley in Citizen's Bank Park for $15.  They also sell The Heater, which is a ribeye cheesesteak made with buffalo wing hot sauce and topped with jalapeno peppers and jalapeno cheddar cheese, for $16.25.  These aren't old prices that I remember paying at my last ballgame either... they're the prices for the 2025 season.

In fairness, it was a tasty cheesesteak, but come on.  Jersey Mike himself could sit on my lap and feed this thing to me one bite a time while whispering in my ear that I'm a sexy boy and it still wouldn't be worth damn near twenty bucks after tax.

We had a buy one, get one free coupon which brought the price down to something a little more reasonable, but unless I hit Powerball or get another of those coupons in the mail, this is going to be my first and last visit to Jersey Mike's.  It's a good hoagie, but dude... it's a sandwich from a fast food chain next door to the weed shop off I-81.

Blessed Are The Peacemakers

In recognition of the end of The Vietnam War fifty years ago today, here are some photos of a 1971 protest against the war that took place in Hazleton.  The photo above shows the protesters marching down Broad Street.  If you look closely, you can see the Jimmy's Quick Lunch sign.

Thank you to Silverpicker97 who shared these images on Reddit.

Enjoy The Freak Show

The United States has always been a pretty screwy place, but it's gotten completely unhinged over the past few years.  It feels like living in the first chapter of a dystopian novel, or in one of the flashback scenes from The Handmaid's Tale.  I'm not going to pretend that it isn't depressing, but its times like these that I try to remember the things that George Carlin said.

"When you're born in this world, you're given a ticket to the freak show.

When you're born in America, you're given a front row seat."

This interview from December 17th, 2007 does a good job at capturing what I've come to learn is my defense mechanism.  It's in this spirit of allowing myself to be a spectator and finding enjoyment in the freak show that I decided to see how Chat GPT would envision paradise for the driver of this truck based on the sticker that they placed on the driver's side rear window.

 

You know... maybe this artificial intelligence stuff isn't all bad.

Retro Neapolitan

Farmers Ice Cream Carton

Farmer's Dairy - Hazleton, PA
If you grew up in Hazleton in the 1980's, there's a pretty good chance that you had one of these in your freezer at some point in your life.

This was available for sale at the Slatington Marketplace earlier this year.

Rediscovering The Bomb

The Market: Antiques, Crafts, and Collectibles
Laurel Mall - Hazleton, PA
This store opened in the Laurel Mall in October 2024, but this was my first time stopping by.  It's sort of like Black Diamond or the Slatington Marketplace, but on a much smaller scale.  It's made up of vendors who rent space to display their merchandise, all of which you pay for at a single cash register in the middle of the store.

One of the things that I'm always on the lookout for in places like this are Garbage Pail Kids; specifically the ones that came out when I was a kid in the mid to late 80's.  These are getting pretty hard to find these days.  Topps brought the product line back in 2003, and they've produced dozens of different series over the past twenty years.  The new ones are alright, but I really don't have much interest in collecting these sets other than to buy the occasional sticker, like the ones that spoofed Bryce Harper and Joe Bob Briggs.

One of the vendors had a sign to announce to customers that they had Garbage Pail Kids for sale.  They were kept in three-ring binders in a locked case so I couldn't immediately see what they were, but based on the Funko Pop toys and other merchandise near the sign, I thought that the cards they had were probably from the 2000's.  But, I thought "what the hell" and asked the man at the cash register to unlock the case so that I could take a look at what they had, and I'm very glad that I did.

Not only did they have a good selection of Garbage Pail Kids from the 80's, but many of them were from Series 1 and 2 which I almost never find outside of a card show.  And right there in the center of the first page of the binder of cards was the holy grail: Sticker #8a - Adam Bomb.  It wasn't in gem mint condition, but I've never been picky about that sort of thing.  As long as the card isn't wrecked and the price is fair for the shape that the card is in, I'm in.  This one checked both of those boxes, so for the first time since the six year old me foolishly peeled this sticker and stuck it on the swing set in my grandparents back yard, I am the proud owner of the flagship card in the Garbage Pail Kids series.

I ended up getting these four cards from Series One and about a half dozen others from Series Two.  None of them are in fantastic condition, but you really couldn't beat the price.  The Geeky Gary card was 99 cents. There are ones on eBay right now in worse shape than this one that are selling for over ten bucks.  I don't think I'd ever pay collectors prices for these, but it's kind of fun to try to put together a full set just on what happens to pop up at yard sales, flea markets, and places like this store in the Laurel Mall.

Moonlight Scene

Postcard
Hazle Park - West Hazleton, PA  (1910)

We Come From The Land Of The Ice And Snow

Interstate 81
Luzerne County, PA
It doesn't stay looking like this for long.  After a few hours, the dirt and grime of the highway turns everything slushy and grey, but it's very pretty when the snow falls overnight and it's still clean in the light of the morning sun.  It kind of makes the ground beneath the frozen waterfall on the mountain look like cookies n' cream ice cream.

The End Of Big Lots

Big Lots
Valmont Plaza - West Hazleton, PA
The discount chain Big Lots filed for bankruptcy in October, and a few days ago, it was announced that they would liquidate all of their remaining stock at clearance sales and close its 900+ stores in the United States, including the one that has been in my hometown for the past 30 years.

Standard Speaker - Hazleton, PA  (March 26, 1994)

The Big Lots in West Hazleton opened in 1994, right around the same time that I moved back to Pennsylvania.  It took over a storefront that was once occupied by an Insalaco's grocery store where my grandparents used to shop when I was a kid.

Hazleton is a working class area, so it was a perfect place for a store like Big Lots.  They were a closeout store that purchased items in bulk from sellers who were highly motivated to unload their stock, and they'd pass the savings onto their customers.  The prices here were especially reasonable in the 90's and early 2000's when I could often find something that I needed to pick up for about half of what it cost at Wal-Mart.

 

One of the best values that this store offered was its furniture.  I've gotten quite a few bookshelves and computer desks here over the years at a fraction of the price that most of the other stores in the area were charging.  This was also a big help when my wife and I bought our house.  The loveseat that I'm sitting on right now as I type this, as well as the sofa to my left and the tv stand to my right were all purchased from Big Lots in 2011.

They always had a good stock of paintings and wall art available, most of which cost between $10 and $20.  The artwork was usually the kind of thing that you'd see hanging at a hotel or a conference hall, but it wasn't bad.  There's a framed piece of art that has been hanging on the wall above my television for the past 13 years that we picked up from Big Lots for about ten dollars.

There was always a good supply of wires and gadgets available here at severely discounted prices.  Most of their stock was either several years out of date or from brands that I've never heard of, but the availability of this merchandise came in handy for me on more than one occasion.  This was especially true after our local Radio Shack closed.  If you needed a cheap USB cord, a thumb drive, a phone charger, a cheap pair of headphones, a keyboard or mouse, or something along those lines, there was a really good chance that you'd find it here for about the cost of a fast food value meal.  Hell, they still had coax cable wire for sale when I stopped in a few days ago to take these pictures.

Another thing they had in abundance at this place was plastic storage bins.  These damn things came in handy on many occasions, especially when it came time to put away holiday decorations.  It was especially appropriate in my case since a good amount of the Christmas decorations I had were purchased at Big Lots in the first place.  The prices for gift bags and wrapping paper alone made this place worth stopping during the Christmas season.  Other stores would sell a roll of wrapping paper for three bucks, give or take.  Here, you could find the same thing for a dollar or 50 cents, and even less than that when they marked it down after the holidays.

The toy aisle at Big Lots was always a lot of fun to look through.  Most of their stock comes from closeout sales.  They purchase their merchandise at severely discounted rates from other stores that were going out of business, or from warehouses that had an overstock of products that they couldn't get rid of.  As a result, there were usually a lot of new old stock and oddities that never caught on enough to be distributed to larger stores.

My favorite thing about Big Lots was their selection of food and snacks.  They would get things in stock here that I have never come across anywhere else; especially dried fruit, meat sticks, snack cakes, cookies, and candy.  A lot of what I found here was produced for other countries, so you couldn't find them in any other store and they would cost a ridiculous amount of money if you wanted to buy them online.

In my previous job, I was the trainer for a team of customer service representatives that handled consumer contacts for Nestle confections, baking, and ice cream products.  My company would reimburse me for anything that I wanted to buy to use for training, and I found a lot of our products here that no other store in my area had.  I remember buying a hell of a lot of Nestle Milk Chocolate, Oh Henry, and 100 Grand bars here to share with our new hire classes.

In the late 80's and early 90's, Valmont Plaza was a pretty busy place where you could go and conceivably purchase everything that you needed all in one strip mall.  When Big Lots closes their doors for the last time, it will leave just two occupants remaining: Michael's craft store and the Yong Hao Buffet.  There's already a lot of empty storefronts here, some of which haven't had a tenant in over twenty years.  I'm still going to be here about once a month because Yong Hao is the best Chinese takeout that I've ever had, but it's going to feel like ordering Chinese food in a ghost town.