In 2007, Evergreen Video was situated along the back parking lot of Spencer’s Market, in a lineup of local businesses that were often in chilly shadows, with the smell of the nearby deli’s fried chicken and steak fries wafting through the air. I know several people whose earliest memories of Evergreen were as children; the corner of animated classics inviting them in with a cast of hand-painted characters.
I honestly can’t remember going there as a kid–my memory of the DVD having switched online when I was in early high school. I had a close friend who was living in an RV, on the side of his friend’s house (it’s a long story, just trust me–it was a lot less Breaking Bad than it sounds), and a lot of afternoons after school were spent watching movies inside of it. We were all heavily involved in Righetti High School’s film program, and viewing a movie was far beyond the typical teenage depiction of talking over the whole thing–it was almost like unassigned homework. It wasn’t staring at a screen; it was fueling ideas, and we were throwing gasoline on the flames every time we saw an unexpected plot twist; a lengthy, delicious tracking shot; or a character that we wished we had come up with ourselves.
Evergreen’s aisles were the proverbial candy shop to our cinematic sweet tooth, and as the late afternoon sun came through the windows, we were building stacks of DVDs that could last a week, but often were finished much sooner. My entire creative point of view changed one night in that stuffy RV, piled in front of the TV with friends as Fight Club played. It was completely unlike anything I had seen, and in my adolescent cynicism, I was reveling in the artistically depicted misery and hopelessness that David Fincher was orchestrating before my eyes. I wanted more.
So another trip to Evergreen was made, and I couldn’t get enough. As another school year began, I was tasked with going over to the shop to get some old movie posters as decorations for the film classroom. This particular visit was my first meeting with Ozzie, the beloved icon of the video store, with feathers the color of a fresh lime. Some people aren’t cat people, and I’m not a bird person, but Ozzie was easy to love. I was starting to realize that Evergreen wasn’t just a pit stop on the way to a night of In Bruges–it was becoming a friend.
In 2010, I graduated high school, moved out of Orcutt, and started attending a film institute down south. I had a fierce determination to make a living as a director, which ended with my first adult experience of being wrong. I wasn’t happy where I was, I missed the warmth of my hometown, and feared that the lifestyle of 16-hour workdays was going to rob me of a chance at motherhood, marriage, and any chance of a life that wasn’t comparable to Nic Cage in The Family Man.
I moved back home, and Evergreen Video was waiting for me.
My teenage romanticism of filmmaking may have been turned on its head, but the inspiration from films was a gift that never stopped giving. Having spent the last eight years since then building a career in photography, Evergreen has been the library that gives muse when I am dry for ideas (the cover of 2011’s Melancholia has taken form in several of my shoots, with varying levels of success), the remedy to an exhausting day (my boyfriend and I have been repeat renters of everything from As Good as it Gets to The Waterboy), and a real-life, behind-the-counter rating system (if owner Carol Boston says it’s a winner, it’s definitely a winner). I grew up, and while Evergreen remained the hometown hero it always was, it took me 10 years to realize the love I had for it.
Saying goodbye to an alphabetical shelving system I’ll never truly understand, to the orange-flavored Air Heads that I got a discount on (because no one else apparently wants them), the clicking of Nicole’s long nails on the counter as my credit card was being read, the sight of a fluorescent green DVD case by our door that I need to remember to return–it’s not until someone walks out of your life that you realize all of the little things that made you fall in love with them.
I’m going to miss you, Evergreen. Your doors may be closing, but yours is a story I’ll always tell.
Alexandra Wallace is a photographer and resident of Orcutt. Send your thoughts to letters@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 20-27, 2018.