A Last Look at Randy's Hobby Shop

[ FOR BETTER RESOLUTION, CLICK ON IMAGE ] An item in the Charleston CITY PAPER by T. Ballard Lesemann http://spoletobuzz.typepad.com/backchannel/2007/01/randys_hobby_sh.html sent us over to Mt. Pleasant, SC, to have a last look at yet another local treasure which is on it way out: Randy's Hobby Shop.

With the exception of some public nuisances, it's almost always sad to see a local business close. When it's a business which speaks to our early life adventures it will be missed all the more. Randy's has closed its doors. They specialized in delighting the spirits the very young, the very old and every group in between. Some hobbies are simple diversions, but others are educational, even inspiring.

In 1968, Randy Dicks of Dayton, Ohio, bought the rights for custom blending of model airplane fuel. Sooner or later most boys were lucky enough to get one of those model airplanes which had an actual internal combustion motor which was flown and controlled with a set of strings. They'd fly in a circle like the astronaut's pod on those giant centrifuges. You could make the plane climb and dive simply by the way you held the strings.

Dicks moved to South Carolina in 1974 and opened his hobby business. Over the last 29 years, the models and even some of the hobbies went through great changes, but the one constant was the fascination and delight which they bring. Mr. Dicks must have loved hobbies and those who followed them. What could be more rewarding than seeing a little boy's eyes grow large a saucers on walking into a place like Randy's. Old boys, too, were dazzled by the massive inventory at Randy's.

Advances in radio controlled devices boosted the hobby and the business. Regional championships are held in every part of the country. One has only to drive out to James Island County Park to see men well into