When I was a kid growing up in Port Hardy, Arena (1991) was my all-time favourite sci-fi movie.
I’d beg my older brother Derek to rent the VHS tape almost every single weekend from Playbacks at the Thunderbird Mall.
I knew for a fact that my brother loved the movie too, because he’d always agree to rewatch it whenever I asked. We’d grab the tape from the shelf, rent it, ride our bikes home, open a couple cans of Coke, put the tape in the vcr, and then just sit on the basement floor of our house completely entertained as the main character Steve Armstrong kicked some alien butt in the ultimate battle of good versus evil.
(If you’re wondering, the movie is about a human in the year 4038 who becomes the best fighter in an intergalactic fighting tournament that’s usually dominated by bizarre alien species, and it’s currently free to watch on Tubi.)
I really miss those simpler times when my brother and I had no real responsibilities other than to ride our bikes downtown and spend our hard-earned weekend cash on junk food, video games, and movie rentals.
I’m sure my mom’s not going to be too thrilled that I’m writing about how we used to spend our allowance, but let’s be real here, we were just kids being kids and having fun in a small town, and there’s a whole lot of worse stuff we could’ve been getting up to in our spare time.
Nowadays I’m so busy I don’t get to see my brother as much as I used to, but whenever we do hangout, we always talk about old movies from our childhood, and we always reminisce on how much fun we had watching Arena over and over again.
As for why I’m writing about this, it’s because I’ve been feeling nostalgic recently and thought it’d be entertaining to write about some more of my memories from what it was like living in Port Hardy back in the late 80’s, early 90’s.
When I was a kid, we had two arcades and a movie theatre in town, and I always had a blast hanging out with my friends playing video games, shooting pool, and of course, going to see new release movies on the big screen.
Going back in time even further, I can remember always pestering my parents to take us to eat at Better Burgers, mainly because the restaurant had a Super Mario arcade machine that my brother and I could play while waiting for our food to show up.
When I was 13, the Nintendo 64 officially arrived in homes across North America and my days and nights suddenly became booked playing games like Goldeneye and WWF No Mercy with my friends all huddled around one screen.
We had so many fun nights hanging out together playing video games till 2 a.m., laughing at bad jokes, drinking soda and eating junk food. I often wonder if the rise in online gaming has caused friends to not hangout in person anymore, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s true.
It’s a bit of a shame, because nights like the ones I just described were truly memorable.
Tyson Whitney is an award-winning journalist who was born and raised in Port Hardy. He graduated with a degree in writing from Vancouver Island University in 2008. Email: editor@northislandgazette.com