You said a mouthfull there BigTim!! I used to pedal my bicycle with a few friends clear across Sunnyvale & into Santa Clara, well over an hours ride just to go drool over all the cool stuff at a shop called "Hobbies Galore". Like your gruff friend the guy that ran this shop put up with us kids hanging around, rarely having the money to actually buy anything. We were there all most everyday though one summer when we were about 12 or 13 yrs old. He was raffling off a mini-bike & no purchase was required. So we would ride over there just about everyday for the 2 months leading up to the raffle, stuffing the ballot box with tickets with our names on it. We thought for sure that one of us had to win with all the tickets we had filled out. Of course none of us won that mini bike but it sure was exciting thinking we were going to & looking at all the control line airplanes that he had for sale. I eventually got my hands on enough money to buy a Cox PT19 Trainer in the control line version. RC wasn't really off & running much at that time. It was a very exciting day when we rode to the shop to buy the Cox plane. I had it crashed before the day was over but I did get some good fun out of it first.

As you said, looking at items on a computer screen will never be able to replace the excitement for a kid walking into a Hobby Shop full of cool stuff to dream about it & wish on for Christmas & Birthday presents. It will be a sad day for this hobby when that Era is gone forever. I know it will be for me.