[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: GAR for $19.99/pair(!)
Bob Woth wrote:
>
> Yes, that was Pete's place. I've done a lot of business with him. I've worked
> for
> several pet distributors in the area and even a manufacturer out of N.Y.. Pete
> is
> a good guy and is just trying to make aliving like the rest of us. The problem
> is ,is
> tha twe as hobbyist claim that we know too much and we try to buy from
> these warehouse, mass market, e-business places and the Ma & Pa or bread
> and butter, the meat of the market places are dying. We laugh and go on. But,
> we wonder what has happened to the youth and why don't they get in or stay
> in the hobby. Well it's because of the Americanization of our youth. The Mass
> Market mentality. Bigger is better yet we get no one that knows anything. The
> dumbing down of America; i.e.: computers, TV, Playstations, etc...
> Off My High Horse,
> Bob
Don't climb off, Bob. It's a pretty good high horse, IMO. We *should* be
concerned about our hobby. We should be concerned that the government schools
are dumbing down our kids. We do care about where we are going.
Your gloom is offset by the kids Mike Reid teaches. I have seen the same with
the Crystal Springs school kids on our Desert trips that Dr. Royal Ingersoll
used to teach, and Tim Patterson still does. [Those are all too few, and we
should jump on any opportunity to encourage them.]
Technology is battering our concepts of retail merchandising, so the mom and
pop LFS have been among the first to go. Fixed-location stores, then
supermarkets, wiped out the horse-drawn vegetable cart I remember from
childhood. Ice, then milk home delivery also followed into memory. Change
happens.
I am anguished when one of these changes makes a nice shop close, but there is
an up side. I just don't like to see it happen to nice, hard-working folks.
Economic reality says we cannot support them just for nostalgic purposes,
though.
Chilean fruits are on sale at my local supermarket, this week. They and
hundreds of other items were never on that neat Chinese greengrocer's small
wagon. Killies get from their tropical homes to the States in a few hours,
now. Check out the problems in the '30s that collectors had getting anything
home on a slow ship (fish not in formaldehyde, that is).
In the '40s and '50s, Herbert Axelrod and a host of other new collectors
opened up channels, via air, that became the source for most LFS imported
fish. Killies failed to make the cut. Fortunately, dedicated hobbyists have
kept them going, anyway, and individual collectors have been most generous in
bringing us wonderful fish, in almost bewildering variety.
A 2-3X fish markup does not really cover maintenance and overhead costs for
the LFS. The truth is that those fish are "loss leaders" for the sale of
hardware. Unfortunately, most compact dry goods sell more efficiently over the
net, delivered by UPS.
We, who keep the fish, are going to have to step up and replace that wonderful
shop on the corner that first got us hooked. At best, it will probably be a
gap filler.
There might even be some bucks to be made by some smart kid that figures out
the reality of how the new markets will *really* work and exploits it. [One
Harvard drop-out did exactly that with computer operating systems, and got
sorta rich in the process. <VBG>]
Meanwhile, support your local affiliate and the AKA and we will get through
these strange times. Send Mike's kids an order in the spring, too. We'll get
Royal and Tim to haul a bunch of their students along on another conservation
work party to the Nevada desert, too. < see http://www.tkphotos.com/dsac/ >
Wright
--
Wright Huntley -- 650 843-1240 -- 866 Clara Dr. Palo Alto CA 94303
http://www.sfbaka.net.
Nobody every recommended a dictatorship aiming at ends other than
those he himself approved. He who advocates dictatorship always
advocates the unrestricted rule of his own will. Ludwig von Mises
---------------
See http://www.aka.org/AKA/subkillietalk.html to unsubscribe
Join the AKA at http://www.aka.org/AKA/Applic.htm
Follow-Ups:
References: