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Grab a violin; Grab a bow; Here comes R.T. with; Today's tale of woe! Soldier; In 1972 I got clobbered with a club labeled "inflation" and I've never forgotten the experience.  I had been in the hobby for ten years at that time; in those early days I got by with one locomotive and a handful of cars - with two stripes on my sleeve and two kids underfoot on the floor couldn't really afford much else.  I used to DREAM! DREAM! DROOL! DROOL! over the ads for brass steamers in every issue of MR and RMC.  Santa Fe 1950 Class Consolidations would cause me to shiver with ecstacy.  They were about $39.95 and I was going to own a couple of those babies one of these days.  Yes sirey, Bob; just as soon as I had four stripes on my sleeve that was going to happen. In 1972 I had those four stripes on my sleeve and I could even afford a few luxuries and I was eagerly awaiting the next company to import one of those Santa Fe 1950 Class 2-8-0s.  Finally there was an announcement that one was on its way; I eagerly scanned the ads in every issue of the hobby press looking for a notice of availability; there it was!  Hooray! $39.95!  Hooray!  Nope; try $79.95.  It had been on the other side of the moon in 1962 and it was just as far beyond my fingertips in 1972.  I settled for building die-cast locomotives from the late 60s until I got out of HO and into N-Scale in the early 80s; I had a 17 locomotive stable by that time and they were sure great runners - but they weren't brass Santa Fe 1950 Class Consolidations. Like almost everyone responding to this topic I have had to make adjustments in pursuit of reality; I remember in the NCO Academy many, many years ago one of my instructors defined a neurotic as someone who builds castles in the sky; psychotics, he said, tried to live in them.  I have a few castles in my sky but I'm not trying to live in them;  I am 66 years old and every year a window closes on my future - every year I face the fact that there is less and less time ahead of me to do those things which I have always desired to do - every year I have to make decisions regarding what I will continue to attempt and what I will abandon.  I'm not morose about these facts; its just hard and fast reality.  When I was 22 (in 1962 when I got started in this "silly" hobby, but, you know what, its a whole you-know-what-uva lot better than pasting stamps into a book) I looked forward to, maybe, another 55 to 60 years of life left ahead of me; I sure don't have that much time left now!!! You ask, "Who can continue to pay for this hobby?"  I guess I can, or, more precisely, I guess I will have to.  At this particular moment a few financial problems resulting from a medical condition which almost killed me and which forced me to quit work and go on Social Security about 30 months earlier than planned precludes my making any major (equipment) purchases. I am, however, feeling considerably better than two years ago and I am planning on going back to work immediately after Labor Day.  Gotta resolve a considerable Credit Card debt; gonna get my one-owner '88 Toyota 4Runner back in running order; gonna get some money in the bank; and I do have some entreprenuerial juices which continue to flow so I'm going to have to try one more business venture and hope, If it doesn't work out, I can bail out before it consumes me as has happened on two previous occasions.  About two years from now after I've returned from the N-Scale Collector/NTRAK convention in Louisville, Kentucky, and the NMRA Convention in Anaheim over in LaLa Land I'm gonna start building me a new layout, and, I'm gonna set myself a $100.00 per month train allowance.  It has taken me forty years to get here but I finally have escaped that nefarious gotta-have-it-right-now syndrome. I will, undoubtedly, have to adjust my spending - I'm certain that, in addition to gasoline, food and almost everything else is going to be more expensive, but I've been in this hobby too long to escape its rapturous tentacles; I may have to eat macaroni and cheese in lieu of T-bone steaks but, as they say, that's the way the cookie crumbles.  I've always grumled at having to pay that price; guess I need to stop living in that castle in the sky and get back down to earth. I have no ambition, whatsoever, to paste stamps in an album!!!
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