National VCR Day

Years ago this was cutting edge technology and everyone wanted it - including me!  As with anything new dealing with electronics, they were quite expensive when they first came out.  If I remember correctly it could set you back as much as $500.00 for one of these babies.

So, for many years, I would just rent one for the weekend AND I did so most every one.  Corey wasn't born and Les was usually either working, hunting or fishing and so he was gone alot.  I'd pick up a rental VCR and head on over to Mom and Dad's house and camp out for the evening with Mom.  I would also have picked out several taped movies for us to watch.  In fact, we would usually have an all-night videothon and might not make it to bed until the very wee hours of the morning.

It was always so much fun to race to the rental place and try to get all the latest and the greatest tapes before they were all checked out.  The tape player and the tapes were all rented for the weekend.  Unfortunately I can't remember how much the rental was on either of them.  But, it was pretty cheap entertainment and it kept Mom and me out of the pool hall and off the street.

I used to tape everything that I wanted to see, but couldn't because I wasn't home - movies, Oprah, soap operas, night time tv shows...it was wonderful!  The problem was trying to find time to watch them.  I accumulated quite of library of tapes which was used to entertain Corey when he came along and lots of daycare children who were waiting to be picked up to go home.


One tape that was borrowed and used a lot while Corey was in school was "The Buttercream Gang".  School teachers borrowed it quite often when they needed something special to show as a reward for their students. 

The plot of the movie was when a member of a close-knit group of small-town friends known as the "ButterCream Gang" returns home from a year in Chicago after falling under the influence of a violent street gang, his friends struggle to understand the reason behind his sudden personality change in this tale of friendship and unconditional love. In the quiet community of Elk Ridge, Scott, Pete, Eldon, and Lanny are inseparable. Though Pete's friends are saddened to learn that their friend will be moving to Chicago for the school year, their friendship is challenged when Pete returns from the city a very different person. As Pete struggles to come to grips with his past and the world outside of Elk Ridge, his friends learn an important lesson in friendship and forgiveness.

My personal favorite for kids was always "The Adventures of Milo & Otis". 

The film opens in a barn with a mother cat who has given birth to kittens. One of the kittens is named Milo, and has a habit of being too curious and getting himself into trouble. He soon finds a pug puppy named Otis, and they soon become friends. They then look after Gloria's chick, who thinks Otis is his mother. Otis convinces the chick that Otis is not his mother by acting tough on Milo and scaring the Chick. When Milo is playing inside a box floating in the river, he accidentally drifts downstream. Otis runs after Milo. Milo goes on many adventures, escaping one incident after another.

He encounters no fewer than three bears; escapes from the desolate, raven-infested Deadwood Swamp; steals a muskrat from a vulpine cache; follows a train-track to the home of a female deer, who shelters him; sleeps in an Owl's "dreaming nest"; stays for a while with a sow pig and her piglets; catches a fish, only to have it stolen by a raccoon; is mobbed by seagulls; and evades first the third bear, then a snake, only to fall into a hole.

Otis, for his part, follows Milo throughout, usually only an hour behind and less than a mile out of range. Finally, the two catch up with one another while Milo is in the hole. Otis pulls him out by means of a rope. Milo and Otis are reunited, and soon find mates of their own: Joyce, a cat, for Milo; and Sondra, a pug, for Otis. After this, they separate and raise puppies and kittens. They help each other's families to survive the harsh winter and find their way back together through the forest to their barn, living together.