I loved this, especially recognizing all the Lionel.

Did anyone notice the package wrapped up in brown paper? Before bags, stores stacked your purchases on a sheet of brown paper and wrapped them up together. I did that in the train department of the hobby store I worked at in the 1970s. New customers stared in surprise and fascination as I tore off a big sheet of paper, carefully stacked their purchases, rolled them up, and sealed them with gummed tape. “Uh. What?!”

Understand that the self-wetting tape dispenser was a big tech upgrade from the string you see clerks use in general stores in old westerns.

Corr’s Hobbies was over 100 years old, in downtown DC.

Thomas J