Stopped off at our local Radio Shack the other day for a radio-controlled “toy” for the almost-15-year-old Mr. Boy who has been busy acing his first-semester high school freshman finals. Just for fun. Radio Shack, alas, is going out of business. The retail empire will be missed hereabouts and certainly in its home base of Fort Worth.
Anyhow, the RC vehicles were consequently marked way down, most at 50 percent off, some more. I got him an RC stunt car for $10. It’ll probably break pretty quick. Most of them do. Still be fun for however long it lasts.
Longer, I’m sure, than one of the twin-rotor choppers so popular the last few years. Until people figured out that, however cool they look, they are expensive to buy, hard to fly and easy to break. Mr. B. and I still have the two Mrs. Charm got us last year. Still in their boxes. Cowards, yep.
Likewise the choppers at Radio Shack, almost the last kind of RC toy still on the local shelves despite markdowns of as much as 70 percent. Which still leaves the price at $30 plus.
Back in the day (in the 1980s, when we never used that expression), my first word-processing laptop for work was a Radio Shack Tandy, complete with rubber ear cups for transmitting back to the newsroom over a land-line phone receiver. Which I once did to my own amazement on an assignment in Pennsylvania. Later I got a better one (larger, flip-up screen) of my own, then called a Notebook. Memories.
Bye, bye Radio Shack. Rest in Peace.
UPDATE: My RIP link turns out to be a slam on the company by a disgruntled employee. I was fooled by the “eulogy” headline. It’s a long gripe about how tough retail is for the cashier-person, the lowest of the low. I remember it well. It was/is low-paid and exhausting. It’s what high school and college kids often wind up with for jobs, until they find something better. When they vow never to go back.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 
