In 1987 I worked for a video company called Cannattas. I started out as a VHS video duplicator. We had a system of I believe 140 professional VHS machines with several broadcast machines as the source. I started with Cannattas soon after they opened their doors for business. At first the days were slow, and the duplicating jobs were small in numbers. But as the salesmen went to work we got busy fast. We duplicated a lot of videos for businesses like Blockbuster, so I got to watch movies most every day. There were days that we duplicated Pippi Longstockings, then Buck Rogers and another day, Top Gun. We never knew what we were going to watch each day until we got the orders in our inbox. The movie Hoosiers was the one we duplicated the most tapes. I think we made 14,000 copies of Hoosiers. I saw that movie so many times that I swore I would never watch it again. I went back on that promise recently and I did watch it. It was sort of reminiscing to see.

We also worked on corporate videos for companies like Exxon, Shell, and BMC Software. One company we worked with a lot was called Travelview. Travelview was based here in Houston and would send video crews all over the world to video tape destinations like the Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Paris, Sydney, and London. These finished VHS tapes would be placed in travel agencies as well as tape rental places like Blockbuster. The Travelview offices had one edit suite so when two or more crews showed up with tapes to be edited, we got the overflow editing. I worked on a lot of these productions, and it was fun to see all the cool places in the world.

There was one crew I worked with a lot who went all over the Caribbean filming Island destinations. I remember one morning as we were setting up to edit the Producer and Cameraman were there. The cameraman said, “Just another day in paradise….” He went on to say that after the next filming project that he is going to take a vacation. I asked where he is going since everywhere he works is on a paradise island. He responded, “I want to go somewhere different. I am thinking of the Bronx in New York.” We all laughed and agreed that would be someplace different.

I had met Jennifer during this time and we long distance dated for about two years. When we decided to get married, I knew where the best place for us to go on our Honeymoon, the Cayman Islands. At that point I knew all about the Caribbean Islands from working on the video projects, so the Caymans were my first choice and Aruba was my second. For our Honeymoon we spent a week at the Caymans on Seven Mile Beach. It was funny in that I knew all about where to go and what to see at the Caymans even though we had never been there before.

I left Cannattas in the Spring of 1990 to go to work at Second Baptist in Houston. I had made a lot of friends while working at Cannattas, some of who I keep in contact today. I have a lot of fond memories of working at Cannattas, and some not so fond. But all is good. I treasure my time there in my memories.