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Re: GAR for $19.99/pair(!)
Thanks Wright. I've seen Mike Reids listing in the news letter. I will support them
this
spring.
Bob
Wright Huntley wrote:
> 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
>
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