As a person with Down syndrome, routines are very important for Christina Cavanaugh. Nearly every day for the past 15 years, the Pocatello, Idaho resident and her mother would go to the Video Stop to rent a movie for her to watch. She became such a valued customer that new employees would be trained on how to interact with her and check out her movie choices, as Christina is nonverbal. With the advent of streaming taking over the home video rental market, it appeared inevitable that Video Stop would close. However, thanks to the store’s owner David Kraning, she can still rent movies out of a section built in the convenience shop next door.
While Video Stop has ceased all rentals, Kraning took a small selection of film titles and built a small video rental section for Christina into the adjacent K&B Kwik Stop. While the section is affectionately known as “Christina’s Corner,” a small group of other loyal customers can also rent from the collection held there. For Toni Cavanaugh, Christina’s mother, it was a relief.
Video stores are dying out due to the popularity of streaming. Photo credit: Canva
“[Christina] doesn’t understand things closing,” Toni told East Idaho News, recounting a time when another video store Christina visited closed down. “Her and I drive over and I let her get out of the car and she goes up and there’s nothing there, and the doors are locked. She still wanted to go in, and it is really heartbreaking to watch the anguish.”
Knowing how much the store meant to Christina, Kraning decided to keep the video rental business, but smaller. After seeing a corner of his K&B Kwik Stop meant for deli storage fail to take off, he decided to change it into a small video rental section.
“That area was going unused, and I thought, ‘OK, it wouldn’t be too much terrible work to just retrofit it, put some shelving in there, and move some of the movies over, and just create kind of a mini video store corner for this kid, so she still could have her normal routine that she’s used to,’” said Kraning.
David Kraning poses in his now-closed video store.Photo credit: East Idaho News
Now Christina continues her routine of picking out a movie with her mother as the staff of K&B Kwik Stop welcome them like “family,” according to the store manager Jennifer Klassen.
Getting access to physical media can be important to many people, not just folks like Christina. While streaming services are convenient, the costs to maintain subscriptions have significantly increased across the board over the years since its inception. There is also not a guarantee that the streaming service you subscribe to will keep the movies you frequently watch as a part of their library, as services like Max permanently remove titles while other streamers like Netflix and Disney+ follow suit.
While they aren’t built for big business that require growing monthly profits or answering to shareholders, the small business market is welcoming the cult-like revival of video stores for film buffs in the mid-2020s as vinyl records were for music fans in the 2010s. Many revival stores have sprouted or survived in the video rental business in recent years such as Vidiots in big city Los Angeles, California and Symsonia Video in small towns Symsonia, Kentucky. If not a brick and mortar business, local libraries have also become hubs to check out blu-rays and DVDs.
DVDs and blu-rays have become a niche product that still has a strong loyal consumer base that is in part due to folks like Christina that prefer or can afford the rental store experience or people who have become collectors of physical media and enjoy being able to have certain movies available to them without needing to pay a subscription or risk having that movie taken offline.
These shops fall into the same category as vinyl record stores, comic book shops, and action figure toy shops. While they’re no longer products widely found in big box stores like Target or Walmart, or were items sold in defunct national chains like Blockbuster, Sam Goody, or Toys R Us, there is still need for them as a function, a collector’s item, or (in some cases) an archive for mediaIf you have an interest in movies or film, you may want to investigate if there is a similar video store in your area to support—and maybe find community there, too.
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A family makes heart shapes with their hands at sunset
Ketel Marte was brought to tears during an MLB game after facing a shameful fan taunt.
Baseball manager's poignant support for a player brought to tears after shameful fan taunt
Whether they’re expecting perfection from their favorite players or, worse, behaving callously toward opposing teams, sports fans often forget that athletes are human beings. But athletic competition has the ability to unify and uplift, even amid such painful and unpleasant encounters. Take, for example, a major-league baseball game held June 24, 2025 between the home team Chicago White Sox and visiting Arizona Diamondbacks.
A shameful low point occurred when Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte was at bat in the seventh inning. Per ESPN, a fan reportedly yelled out a comment regarding Marte’s late mother, Elpidia Valdez, who died in a 2017 car accident in the Dominican Republic. Team personnel, including manager Torey Lovullo, then requested the 22-year-old fan be ejected. (Though he was remorseful and admitted his actions were inappropriate, according to an ESPN source, he was nonetheless banned indefinitely from all MLB ballparks.) "We commend the White Sox for taking immediate action in removing the fan," the MLB said in a statement. Marte reportedly declined to comment.
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While the fan’s behavior is inexcusable, it did spark a powerful and inspiring moment. After hearing the comment, Marte was visibly upset, prompting Lovullo to walk on the field, put his arm around him, and offer some words of encouragement. "[I said,] 'I love you, and I’m with you, and we’re all together, and you’re not alone,'" Lovullo said in a post-game interview, as documented by The Rich Eisen Show. "'No matter what happens, no matter what was said or what you’re heard, that guy is an idiot.’"
According to Arizona Republic, Lovullo heard the fan’s comment but didn’t want to repeat it. “I looked right at [Marte] when I heard,” he said. “I looked right at him, and he looked at the person, as well. He put his head down and I could tell it had an immediate impact on him, for sure."
Elsewhere in the post-game interview, the manager called the moment "terrible" and reflected on why he stood up for Marte. "Fans are nasty, and fans go too far sometimes," he said. "I love my players, and I’m gonna protect them…I’ve known Ketel for nine years. He’s had some unbelievably great moments and some hardships as well and some really tough moments in his life. I know those. At the end of the day, we’re human beings, and we have emotions. I saw him hurting, and I wanted to protect him."
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The following day, the Chicago White Sox X account sent out a message in support of Marte, writing, "We’re with you" and "Baseball is family." On The Rich Eisen Show, the show's host addressed the need to eradicate this kind of toxic athlete-fan interaction: "I was hearing [people saying], 'There’s no place for this in major league baseball.' There isn’t. There’s no place for this in our society. I understand that people are saying the MLB has got to do something about this. Fans have a right to heckle players—this is something that has happened forever…But there is a line."
In another recent, depressing sports moment with a beautiful coda, let’s look to Game 7 of the NBA Finals between the Indiana Pacers and the eventual champions, the Oklahoma City Thunder. During the first quarter, Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton tore his right Achilles tendon—a devastating injury that could potentially sideline him for most of the 2025-2026 season. Following the game, in a lovely display of sportsmanship, Thunder point-guard and league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander went to the Pacers locker room to check on his competitor. In a press conference, he said, "You just hate to see it, in sports in general. But in this moment, my heart dropped for him. I can't imagine playing the biggest game of my life and something like that happening. It’s so unfortunate."
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