Travelview

In 1987, I worked for a video company called Cannattas. I started 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 few. But as the salesmen went to work, we got busy fast. We duplicated many videos for businesses like Blockbuster, so I got to watch movies almost every day. There were days when we duplicated Pippi Longstocking, 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 of. 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 a 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 film destinations like the Cayman Islands, the 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 edit, we handled the overflow editing. I worked on many of these productions, and it was fun to see all the cool places around 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, he will 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 met Jennifer during this time, and we dated long-distance for about two years. When we decided to get married, I knew the best place for us to honeymoon was the Cayman Islands. At that point, I knew all about the Caribbean Islands from working on video projects, so the Caymans were my first choice and Aruba 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 in 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 whom I keep in contact with today. I have a lot of fond memories of working at Cannattas, and some not-so-fond ones. But all is good. I treasure my time there in my memories.