During the entire decade of the ’90s, I was in the foster care system. Looking back, I realized that I didn’t have much of anything to hold onto when it came to pop culture or anything really for most of this glorious decade. This is interesting because one of the engines that drives me is pop culture. I was living in a time when said engine was at an all-time high, yet I can honestly say I never got to fully immerse myself in that pool like a lot of other kids did. I mean, we had Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls running hot, the ’90s comic book mania, Batmania, Star Wars re-releases, Spice Girls, and gigapets. I mean, holy smokes, did the world take a positive BOOM or what? But there I was, just trying to get through the day like a young John Connor who so desperately wanted to ride off on a dirt bike after telling off one of six foster dads, “She’s not my mother, Todd!”

Sadly, I was a kid in survival mode, and I didn’t even know a Todd.

Of course, I did experience the ’90s as it happened around me. I don’t want to make it sound like I was locked away in a wood-paneled basement with a maroon sofa covered in hard plastic-headed Simpson dolls that smelled like urine and dust. I experienced the post-war decade in a unique way. That’s the cool thing about life, I realized. Yeah, I desperately wanted to partake in the revelry of all that went down, but God had other plans for me – I get that now. Instead of being in the middle of the party, I had a little hill from which I could sit and experience the incoming nuggets of pop culture in my own unique way.

For example, I wasn’t there in ’95 when Jordan announced “I’m Back.” My exposure to MJ’s return was through newspapers, not the actual games because I wasn’t allowed to watch much TV. Also, when Coolio’s magnum opus dropped, “Gangsta’s Paradise,” I discovered it because of Weird Al’s “Amish Paradise” while I was grounded for breathing. And finally, and most importantly because it drives this article, when “Batman Forever” was released, I never saw it in theaters. I saw it on VHS.

Video Home Systems. These beautiful rectangular chunks of mostly black plastic are definitive pathways to Nostalgia Street. They define my nostalgia more than any other device, toy, or thing for that matter. I can trace all of my VHS experiences throughout my wayward upbringing with ease. When things got hairy, I got “tapey”… That doesn’t rhyme nor is it clever. I tried. It’s all I got.

The neat thing is I became a tape-head at the end of the ’90s – the year I found my way into my forever home. Doesn’t that make me sound like a dog or some spotted freak of a cat? Well, that’s how I felt – a freak living amongst the normies. That is until I met this kid, Javier, in grade school, who confirmed to me by way of showing off his skills of making his dick dance in his sweat pants or school slacks. Seriously, this kid would whisper to anybody around him to “look” (we always did) as he would be demonstrating his seemingly uncontroable desire to flex his dick. He would always laugh, and us guys would always call him someting like gayrod.

I remember one time after school a few of us were playing hide and seek. It was in the back of the school where the after-school program was. Javier and I hid together inside this huge metal cabinet. We were on the bottom shelf of said cabinet, it was that huge, with the metal door mostly closed. After less than a minute of silence, I heard Javier whisper, “Hey.” Turning my head, I saw Javier scrunched up, knees spread, with his dick out. It was hairy. I ran out. I was scared and ultimately frustrated that I had to find a new place to hide. In the end, I am thankful for that kid’s obsession with his flashing show because it confirmed to me that I indeed was not alone. We were all freaks one way or another.

You’re probably asking me what this is even about. Well, it’s not about inappropriate pre-teens – I promise you that. Allow me to recalibrate and get back on track.

I take a breath, and I enter a memory. I’m standing in front of my old Chicago house. The brick house. The house that, after a decade of moving, betrayal, and loneliness, would be my permanent house because the people who lived in it, those saints, ended my pilgrimage and adopted me. God, do I remember that house – its solid frame. The yard with the pool that was destroyed by a storm. The endless adventures in the yard. Rock wars with my friends. That house is sacred to me. Let me take you inside.

The front entrance is to the right. The original door, the door that we will be entering, is brown. My dad hasn’t upgraded it to the white door with the electric lock. As you walk from the long concrete driveway towards the door, you step on a series of round step stone pavers made up of little dark pebbles. You reach the door, open it, and enter.

The front entrance is dark. Only a single window to the right lets in daylight. The carpet is a dark brownish-red. No padding, it’s a glued-down carpet. A closet to the immediate right of you holds a million jackets, shoes, and sports equipment in a clear plastic tote. A two-story staircase, carpeted, ascends about ten feet from the entrance. The smell that hits your nose is that of dust and ions because of the air purifier. Dad has been fighting against poor air quality since forever. To the right of the stairs, and under the second staircase, is a large dark space that has three bikes tucked away inside. You walk towards the staircase.

As you reach the bottom step, you look up and smell Mom’s Hamburger Helper. Is that Zeppelin on the radio? You want to go up, but you don’t because that isn’t the memory you are revisiting. Instead, you turn your head to the left and look down a dark wood-paneled hallway that leads to a room that you cannot see because of the darkness. Smiling, you turn and walk to the hallway.

Your feet reach a small step, and you enter. To your right is a closet door that is open. It’s a large closet with clothes, suit jackets, and suitcases. You like this closet because it hides Christmas presents and your dad’s toys like the Michael Jackson thriller doll and a random stack of Spawn toys – mostly scantily clad Angela. A memory within a memory strikes you: Brittany, a girl who liked you for a minute, is in the closet with you. You are showing her the Thriller doll. The idea of you alone with a girl in a closet has zero sexual implications. You are innocently unaware. The click of a light turning on awakens you from this sub-dream, and you see that the next room to the left is glowing.

The laundry room. You smile as you peek inside and look behind the door. Yup, Dad’s old Christmas Carol costume is still hanging there. He was so proud of being part of the stage production. Afraid to delve further into that thought, you turn and see the small bathroom across the hallway. Ah, this is the bathroom of many reflections, you think as you enter.

The bathroom is nautical-themed. A block glass window, four high, lets in warm, warped light from the back of the house. You look in the mirror and see yourself flexing with a toy gun. You’re doing your best True Lies poster pose. The green off-brand Nerf handgun gun looks silly now, but back then, it was real. Lowering your hands, you look down at the sink and remember the tears that fell inside after watching Edward Scissorhands with Mom and Dad. You rented it from Movie World after Kung Fu class. You never understood why everyone was so mean to Edward because you could never understand how similar you were to him at that time. Wiping away a memory tear, you exit the bathroom and turn towards the entrance of the living room. Before you enter, you spot the beige rotary phone hanging on the wall and remember the time you and Matt played Star Wars with your dad. He would hide inside, and you and Matt would attack him with lightsabers and toy guns. You would laugh and run away because he would always get extreme. God, Dad really did try his best to be the best he could be with me. Another step, and you enter the room.

The room was and is basically a large studio apartment. To the right, an old wooden piano surrounded by boxes and boxes that filled the back of the room. They went all the way to the sliding glass doors. You never really explored it that much because of the red-haired doll that looked like Chucky. It was creepy… But what you did explore was the bookshelves to the immediate right of you – VHS tapes galore.

You walk in front of the shelves, careful not to step on Dad’s boxes, piles of papers, and random electronics. It’s here, right here, that you discovered a hidden life. A life of fictional friends, a life of inspirations, a life of histories. Smiling, you see all the old familiar tapes:

• Ghost in The Darkness – Where you learned about lions and Africa.

• Star Wars – the first movies they showed you. Dad knew, somehow, that it would make you feel comfortable being a stranger in a strange house.
• Indiana Jones – the follow-up to Star Wars. Dad showed me Last Crusade first.
• Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story – You and Mom would watch this after Kung Fu. Kung fu, Master Tsai, Glen, Matt the girls, and Montana.
• Highlander – Oh the sword fights you would have against invisible enemies! You also recall how sad you felt for Connor. Yet anotherunrecognized piece of you.
• True Lies – at the time you thought this was the coolest action movie until you found …
• Terminator 2 – This movie left a mark on you as strong as a tattoo. Here, you were John Connor. Here you found a fictional dad in the Terminator. The long stretch of black road runs through your mind as if it were real.
• The Gods Must Be Crazy 1 & 2 – Yes! You chuckle at how gleeful Dad was when he showed you this movie. He adored Xi and the godsent Coca-Cola bottle.
• Die Hard 3 – With Vengeance shimmers at you. The non-stop action, beat-up hero, and your intro to Sam Jackson would lend hours upon hours of you playing pretend action hero by yourself.
• Dangerous Liaisons – You furrow your brow at this because you don’t recall the real reason why you watched it, but you do remember the nude scenes…which is probably the why behind this tape…
• Short Circuit – Good ol’ Johnny 5. The radical cool robot that you first saw in the other house with the other family has followed you home. You feel warm and fuzzy thinking about Steve Guttenberg. He’s an actor you don’t talk about but love because he’s a random constant in your childhood.
• Crocodile Dundee 1 & 2: You loved all things Australian. Mick and his adventures kept you feeling “cool” because who was cooler than Mick Dundee?
• Universal Soldiers – You didn’t grow up a GI Joe kid, but you did grow up as an action flick enthusiast. Van Damme was right there next to Stallone and Arnold.
• Mission Impossible – This was an interesting movie. You remember falling in love with the way the spy/espionage plot made you feel. But you also remember how spooky it was. You’d eventually pretend to be Ethan Hunt for a couple of years. Remember when you created the username, Hunt_Ethan, on one of those early free game websites?

Stepping back, you let your vision fill up with the rows of VHS tapes. But, as you do this, a small blurry spot in the corner of your eye starts to form. You know that time is limited here, so you decide to grab a VHS tape to pop in one last time. Your fingers land on “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”

All of these tapes and the ones not remembered meant the world to you. But T2 has something special. You can’t fully identify what that is, but it doesn’t stop you from sliding the tape out and taking it over to the old VHS player below the TV.

The TV is a dozen feet away from the bookshelves. It sits in a wooden cabinet. Below the TV is the VHS player. On the floor to the right, next to a pillar, is the silver VHS video cassette rewinder. Next to that is the SNES system with “Batter Up” you played with Dad the first day you arrived. The small blur in your vision has grown. You try to blink it away but can’t.

Kneeling down, you let the tape slide out of the sleeve and into your hands. With Kung Fu skill, you slide the tape into the VHS player, and it doesn’t go in. Rolling your eyes, you flip it around and re-insert it. The machine clicks, clunks, and whirs to life. You click on the power button, stand up, and take a seat on the long L-shaped blue couch. The couch you spent what feels like hundreds of hours on.

The TV turns on. The red WARNING slide appears. You feel a fuzzy static in your stomach as you lean in to watch. You hear your dad, from down the hallway and up the stairs, tell you to get ready. It’s Saturday morning, and Kung Fu class is at 9 AM. You yell back, “Okay,” but you just want five more minutes. Five more minutes of this moment, of this basement, on this couch, with these tapes, in this house, but your vision blurs completely as you go blind to the memories of the past.

I open my eyes, and I am here now, in the present. It’s a gloomy weekday. The kids are at school, summer is just about over, and I’m working out this bit of nostalgia. I’ve got an old friend playing in the background.

My basement tapes are doorways to extraordinary happiness. They filled in all the gaps of my loneliness that I had during the greater part of a decade. The holy VHS tape was a tool that my parents used to get closer to me, to show me that the places, the people, and the stories within could be more than mere entertainment but a pathway to healing, happiness, and ultimately my own little corner of nostalgia.

As I sit here in the present, thinking about those VHS tapes, the basement, and the house filled with memories, I’m reminded that life is like a video store of experiences. Those tapes weren’t just movies; they were the complex pieces that helped fortify my upbringing, connecting me to my new family, my new friends, and my personal slice of life growing up.

In the end, it’s not really about the pop culture that I missed or the challenges (dick-flashing friends being one of them ) I faced during those years. It’s about the gift of hope and healing that carried me through. All of that could be found in that basement which was more than just a space in a house in Chicago; it was a cathedral of imagination, a place where memories were created and where I discovered that life, love, and all that “normal” stuff was always there for me.

Though  I may have lost detailed memories of the past, the important memories live on, like an old tape found at a thrift store, waiting to be passed on to my daughter.

So, dear friends, here’s to the past, the present, and to the future. May we continue to remember the source of what drives our individuality,  may we embrace change, and may we hold on to the people, places, and things that we love for as long as they can last.

Until next time, friends.