Maine Radio Shack Fan Recreates Total ’80s Moment at a Bangor Mall

We Bangor kids definitely put our time in at the Airport Mall.

I know that in the '80s and '90s, the Bangor Mall got all the real attention. It was literally the cultural epicenter of teen life. Whether it was to actually go there and do some shopping, or whether it was to just go there and walk endless circles in it for hours on end, the mall was life.

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But before that, Bangor had the Airport Mall. Even in the 80's, the Airport Mall was like the little sister to the big mall. It had a lot of the same things. A book store, a record store, and an arcade... And of course, Radio Shack. Even when the Bangor Mall became king, people still needed that Radio Shack location.

Other stores have tried to be Radio Shack, but you can just forget it...

Over the years, competition got stiff in the retail electronics world. You were seeing more stores like Best Buy and Circuit City. Then along came Amazon. Once people realized they could shop without leaving the house, it was a game changer for some of these big box stores and malls.

Now, shopping online is so commonplace, it's all but shut the door on a lot of retail chains, sadly with Radio Shack being one of them. Nationwide, there are still 400 stores out there, and there are even three in Maine, sort of. They are part of other businesses, in a sense. But it's still Radio Shack products.

Some people just won't let go.

In the metaphoric sense, I haven't let Radio Shack go. I still wish I could run in to buy obscure power cords or adaptors, that I have to spend hours online searching for. But we came across this young lady named Melissa Bambi Farinaro, on a Radio Shack Facebook group, that was posing in front of the old Radio Shack in the Airport Mall, in Bangor.

She even went so far as to try and dress the part, and brought along a bunch of her vintage Radio Shack gear to really seal the deal on the photo. You really have to admire the dedication that went into representing this kind of history, all in one spot. This particular location closed around ten years ago.

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Like I said, I'd happily still patronize a Radio Shack on a regular basis. It was the best place for the weirdest stuff that you didn't know you needed, until you needed it. Nowadays, you might as well get used to waiting a week to get it. In a world where instant satisfaction is tops, why can't still buy things in stores?

Remember any of these places too?