Dimple Records Is Closing. Now What??

  Dimple Records is closing all of their locations.  Cody and Pacey wrote great stories about it so we don’t need to go into detail.  But what am I suppose to do now?  

By kncipat on June 19, 2019

When I found out I honestly don’t think I moved for ten minutes.  Dimple Records is closing all of their locations.  Cody and Pacey wrote great stories about it so we don’t need to go into detail.  But what am I suppose to do now?  

Every Saturday for the last 9 years I’ve taken my son Dimitri to Dimple Records, or as he calls it, Music Games Movies.   Let me back up.  Dimitri has autism.  He has extremely limited verbal skills.  He also is the hardest working person I know.  He goes to school every day and then comes home to a minimum of 3 hours (sometimes up to 5) of one-on-one tutoring.  With my work schedule (up every morning at 2:15 and to bed by 9) I don’t get a lot of one-on-one time with my son.  So Saturday is our time.  And boy does he love Dimples.  

Our routine is always the same (and Dimitri is big on routines and schedules).  He asks for car.  I ask him where he wants to go.  He says, “I want Music Games Movies.”  So off we go to Dimple Records.  It’s either the one on Broadway (the old Tower Records location) or the one on East Bidwell in Folsom.  Dimitri is allowed to pick out two videos and I’m not kidding when I say he has the stores memorized.  He knows what’s in every aisle.  But that doesn’t keep him from combing through them all.  I follow along laughing and asking him questions that he rarely answers.  Sometimes he’ll crawl on his knees so he can check out the VHS tapes that they store beneath the regular racks.  Sometimes he gets loud because he’s excited.  Sometimes he’s even accidentally bumped into another customer.  In 9 plus years of doing this we’ve never had an incident.  Not one.   In fact quite the opposite.   The staff greets him when he comes in, and talks to him on the way out.  This has been the one place that’s consistently treated my son like a regular customer.  Any parent of a special needs child will tell you just how rare and how appreciated that is. 

So what now?  I can explain over and over to Dimitri that Music Games Movies is gone.  I can (and will have to) come up with a different place to go.  We will eventually fall into a different Saturday routine.  But it will never be as special, as wonderful, and as kind as Dimple Records has been. 

To the owners and founders of Dimple Records, John Radakovitz, Dilyn Radakovitz and the entire Radakovitz family, thank you.  Thank you for giving me so many memories with my son.  Thank you for making him happy.  Thank you for not making either one of us ever feel weird, different or out of place.  Thank you for being one of our biggest highlights of the past 470 weeks (give or take a few).   I’m sure for the next several weeks I’ll keep hearing, “Da-da, I want Music Games Movies.”