The Art of the Browse

Long before Dot had been introduced to Com; and way before there was an "app" to do what we used to do ourselves; there was the "art of the browse".
I thought of this the other day when I cleaned out a drawer and found my old "Blockbuster" card. A ping of nostalgia hit this old fella the way smelling Old Spice makes me miss my Dad.
I picked it up as if it could tell stories. The memories of browsing the aisles with my boy on Saturday afternoons was sweet with real life pictures. Dan would wander the Game aisle for hours as I would browse the "New releases" to see what would be the Saturday night feature.
Browsing was a "thing" and still is in a way for me. I never get tired of book stores or libraries, and love a "magazine afternoon hunt" in the winter. although the paper versions are going away and the good stores like Mikes, (which had over 300 titles of magazines from Neurology today, to Bumper Car new Age magazine) are going the way of the CD store.
Browsing a record store many years ago was a day of pure joy. We would bus and subway down to Sam the Record Man early on a Saturday morning where we spend the day in bliss! Album art was our Louvre. Discovering a rare bootleg Dylan (Live at the Budokan) was winning the lottery for us. Those days are near gone of course, and with internet shopping this old curmudgeon fears that I will lose my browsing days in the Hardware store.
Life at the speed of life I guess, and we will learn to "move it or lose it old fella"!
Choosing a movie now takes as long as it does to make a cup of noodles. I will and do miss the Blockbuster days, and part of my favorite memories with a ten year old are in that magical membership card.