missing old hobby shops

[bound for glory]

well, i'll be 43 november 30th, and as always, with the holidays coming, i get to thinking about my youth.
i remember my local hobby shops. i lived in a small town in ne new jersey, and as a kid, i had a nice shop in my town. GHQ, CINC and alot of building and terrain made by who knows. it was great! i remember i'd walk the 2 miles to my shop for one pack of micro armor. friday nights i'd hang out at imagination workshop. great people. i really got to know the owners. the place was awsome. its gone now. sad.
and there was hobby hangout. across the river. i first went there in 1976 with my dad. got my first d&d figures and books there. another great place. they just closed about 2 years ago.
and maxs hobby hall. now thats really where i got into micro armor. guy said he was going out of buisness and had the ghq stuff for $1 a pack. i myself bought almost 65+ packs. my friends bought at least as much. that along with a artical in WARGAMES DIGEST about sandtables really put me onto gaming with 1/285th.funny enough, as of 2 years ago(i hav'nt been in the area scince then) the place is still open. but when my wife wnd i went in 2 years ago, they only had a rack of old rpg stuff, and a box of random miniatures(2 packs of ghq, still marked $1) when i saw the 2 packs of micro armor, i wanted to cry. really.because i was a kid in this store when this stuff was on sale. i hope you old timers understand, my son(8 yo) does'nt want anything to do with miniature wargames. he sits on the computer. whitch is also sad, imho. when he was 6 he joined me at my painting some space marines, and he had a good time, but now he wants nothing to do with it. but if theres a new zombie game on the pc, he goes nuts.
might be just the holiday blues, thinking about wargaming with friends that are gone, in a town that i loved and had to move out of, and now living in a place(which is nice) that has no hobby shops, and i doubt any one up here plays wargames...anybody else fell this lose? i miss my hobby shops.

[dragon6]

Don't we all.

But are we just pining for our lost youth or reality? Our selections are larger now but you have to order from some far off location. Of course, back then, that too was often necessary as the local hobby shops might not carry what you wanted.

Nevertheless I miss the hobby shops. The camaraderie was great and how else were you going to learn?

[bound for glory]

i miss going into a shop and talking to the owner. back then(late 70's early 80's) the people at the local shops would really talk to you and want to know what you were into.
heres a funny story i'd like to tell. maybe its gonna sound stupid to you guys, but i've never even told my wife about it. this is how strong i feel about the yeasterday hobby stores...
i was really into d&d in 1980. so were alot of my friends. being a 14 yearsold kid, and living with my grandmother, i use to take the bus across the delawere river to hobby hangout. i got my rpg stuff there and i went almost every friday after school.
at that point, i knew the guy phil who was the owner. we did'nt really talk, but he knew me and so did his wife. one friday me and a friend went there and as i was paying for my goblins(i will remember that for the rest of my life) the owner starts yelling at my friend. my buddy was seen stealing some dice...
well, as i had nothing to do with it, i just paid for my stuff, but the owners wife, saw me come in with my friend and she was on the phone in a flash calling the police. she asked if i stole anything. i said no, check me if you want. the police came and took me and my friend to the local station.
the cop asked me if i took anything, again i said no, and when the cop took my friend in another room, he said i had nothing to do with it. long story short, my friends mom was called and she took us home. my grandmother asked me if i did anything wrong, and she was fine when i said i did'nt steal anything.
i was really down about the whole thing. so it was about a year until i went back. maybe it was because the wife just assume i was stealing. i really can't say. but i just did'nt go back there much.
well, after high school and collage, i started to go back. mainly because the other stores in my area were go out of buisness. they had no more gaming stuff, but they still sold poly s paint. and the owner, phil, was alway there. but he never talked to me. now, i was a man at this point, but i know he knew me.
so, i would go every so offten. then i heard they were closing. and heres the point of the story: i had it in my heart to go there and talk to the guy and tell him i was sorry my friend stole that friday afternoon along time ago. i waned to say i liked his store, and how the community would be worse for him closing. tell him my dad took me there alot before he died, and i would never take from his store. maybe shake his hand as man and a father and say thanks for keeping me from trouble, because when me and my friends were playing d&d late at night, other people we knew were doing drugs and getting into trouble.
but it did'nt happen like that. when me and my wife went there, i asked some young girl where phil was...she said he died.