Maybe some of the "old memories" are due to the fact, at least in my case, that my folks didn't have much extra $$ after our basic needs were met to buy ready made stuff. Folks did a good job of caring for us, we never had to worry about food, clothes, etc. But if we wanted extra stuff (electronic "gizmos" as my mother called them), we had to figure out how to make that happen. And most of the time, that involved creating (building) those items many times from scratch. Don't see much of that today. And places like R/S served us well in those days.
Rgds,
Ed