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Yikes, was I ever made to feel like some kind of DINOSAUR, recently...I was going to meet some "kids" I went to grade school with, and haven't seen in 46 years, in San Bernadino, California.  It is the geographical CENTER of the L.A. "basin" where most of the people from way back then, still live.  I hadn't been to that town in several decades, and recalled it was a big RAILROAD type town, with the Southern Pacific, Santa Fe, and Union Pacific, all running through town, some on the way to the famed Tehachapi Loop.  Which also meant a plethora of hobby shops. Armed with the internet as a search tool, I found ONE hobby shop still surviving, so called to ask if they had model railroad stock on hand.  Told YES, I went early to the mini-reunion, hoping to luck out and find some ancient old boxes on the shelves...maybe even an old VARNEY tank car, originally labelled $1.49 and marked up now to $23.95The store is in a small shopping center.  Maybe 3000 square feet, so quite expansive inside.  I walked down aisles of radio controlled airplanes, models of automobiles, little cars that moved by radio control, even dolls and dollhouses.  Finally I turned a corner and saw that there were about twenty-two items for sale, that had anything to do with scale modelling.  The kind of thing I wouldn't bother to grab for, even if it had a FREE sign on it.I got this big wave of FEAR over me.  My hobby seems to be disappearing!  The retail stores I used to hang out in, and drool over all the great stuff on display, have all gone out of business.  Okay, so I know the REAL challenge of this hobby is to "SCRATCHBUILD" everything you possibly can, but I am NOT going to ever even TRY to patch together a working GP-9, using nothing but toothpicks and rubber bands. McGyver I am NOT.Is our hobby "safe" in the hands of the big internet retailers?
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