I have fond memory's of all the trapping supply's I bought from G/M from the 1960s to the mid 80's when family/kids/work got in the way. I ran a 20+ mile trap line on a mini bike after school an chores until I entered the service in 1964. Plus all my fishing/hunting stuff came threw the PO as well. We had LGS an L/Trapping/fishing stores but none could supply what GM could threw the mail. Regardless of why they went to shit, I will always have memory's of younger years of opening packages, spending all night getting the traps ready to set/lay the next day. Bought K's of rds of Remington cleanbore 22lr from them at 45-50 cents a box delivered that I used in a H&R revolver to dispatch muskrats, an every once in a while a mink(outstanding money there). Still have one box + the H&R Targeteer I got on my 10th BD in 1957. Say what you want about GM but back in the day they served/helped outdoor folks of all ages enjoy the Hunting/Fishing an Trapping sports. Some of that knowledge turned into life lessons. I seen the demise of GM years back and still rue the day college boys took over from the founders. They were typical college kids, had paper that simonized last week, they could not spell it this week they are one. Educated beyond their intelligence about the subject matter they were hired to improve upon.
http://www.company-histories.com/Gan...y-History.html
I will miss G/M so very much, but the one thing the college boys can not take or fuck up, are the fond memory's I will have of the company until I die.
Just the ramblings of a old man who was raised in NW Indiana when this country stood for something!
I have one word for you NAFTA. Maybe two words the second being Internet.
I still wear clothes I bought twenty some odd years ago....an LL Bean flannel shirt - made in USA, GAP jeans, plain ones no skinny calf, stuff that will fit over a boot and has some room in the ass to hold a set of pliers in a pocket or let me expand and contract depending on how much pizza and ice cream I eat that week, made in USA.
Neither item and neither retailer sells item made in the USA now with minor exceptions.
With NAFTA we have a race to the bottom. Who can camouflage something to look useful and sell it cheapest even though the item is a blazing hunk of shit? Buying shit at pennies than selling it at 100% or 200% markup allows for false profit margins to pay for big expansion and to get your name nationwide. It's killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Gander Mountain stays local focusing on core customers they make small profit but remain viable. They go national, sell junk, they lose core customers but make up for it by selling to city dwellers that want to dress like Elmer Fudd.
Internet. In high school half the joy of buying was the wait. I remember saving money around 1984 or so to buy a Daiwa Magforce bait caster reel. It was $100 or so bucks back than, huge money. Not to mention the $100 or so Fenwick HMG carbon rod to go with it. Magnets and carbon I was high tech living in the Northeast where baitcasters were not the norm. I wanted to be Bill Dance or Roland Martin at my little lake catching bass. I did too.
Anyway half the fun was listening for the UPS truck the minute I MAILED off my order form and check to Bass Pro Shops. I used the order form included in the big ass catalog. I didn't go out after school for about a month, listening for the sound of the UPS truck.
I still have that rod/reel combo and it works great.
Recently my wife has bought some high dollar house items and I'm shocked how these things are valued by the seller.
One item is a concrete top coffee table. I sit in front of it now. It cost just under a grand. When it arrived it was noticed that when it was made over in Vietnam there was a void in the mold at the top corner and the manufacturer filled the hole with some sort of black tar and fish sauce. It's about a one inch by 1/2 inch mark right at the corner, pretty visible. The concrete is standard gray concrete color, why they didn't use more concrete for the patch instead of black tar perplexes me.
For that money my wife said screw it, I'll get a new one. They didn't have anymore, they wouldn't pick it up to return they told us to just donate it to Goodwill! They sent back her money. With the hassle of trying to dispose a 3'x3'x3" concrete slab on our end the black void no longer seems such an issue when the item cost nothing so it sits here with a plant and kids books on it.
The other example was some wall sconce she bought. It's a standard light but the shade is a paper thin veneer of birch wood that spirals over the light. It's natural wood, designed somewhere in Scandinavia probably made in Southeast Asia, everyone without a penis comments on how beautiful they are.
Anyway of the 4 bought one had the evidence of a knot showing on the side. No hole or anything, just a whorl from a small branch that had been on this tree before being cut into veneer. Kind of looked like the red spot on Jupiter but maybe 1/4 inch diameter.
Lamp is almost $500. My wife says she wants to return it for one without the whorl. They were an absolute pain to install so I'm like "It's wood, what did you expect? It's not a defect, it's supposed to be there". Anyway call to the seller, they say new one is in route, we ask for RMA to send the other back and they say "Just throw it away". $500 in the trash can, no, now it's a spare for when my kids smash a basketball against one and smash the veneer.
Our regulatory control and willingness to accept slave labor in other countries has resulted in a world of goods with absolutely no value.
