Radio Shack
Rt. 93 - Hazleton, PA
I'm going to miss this place. It had cheap batteries, awesome remote control cars, and if I ever had a vintage gizmo from a flea market that was missing a wire or something, all I had to do is bring it in and the folks at the counter knew exactly what it needed.
The main thing I'll always remember about this store is that it was the place where I got my first computer - a 486 IBM Aptiva. We had a computer when I lived in Florida, but that was more of a family computer and it was in the years before any of us knew what the internet was. Pretty much all I ever did on it was play the occasional game of Ninja Rabbit, Double Dragon 3 or the demo for Out Of This World. Mostly, it was used by my stepmom for her projects. The Aptiva was more than that. It had a 28.8 modem and was my first door to the internet. I spent hours on that thing, and I'll never forget how excited I was on the the day that we brought it home from this Radio Shack.
In its final years, the store has mostly become a Sprint mobile phone dealer. The computers and handheld games are long gone, but they have just about any type of phone case or chargers that you could ever want. Just about everything is marked down between 50 - 80% off, so I stocked up on batteries before they close for good.
