Tales of the purple spad, and other improbale stories...
As many of you may know, the old saying goes you can't come home again.
But sometimes you can, it just depends on where you came from and where you are going.
When i was a boy (the 1960s) model building was in its heyday, lots of cheap (and generally crappy) model kits could be found everywhere. I can remember being sent to the store to buy milk and they had an isle dedicated to plastic model kits. I could remember my imagination soaring as I looked at the boxes (which usually had a nice painting that would be far better looking then what lurked in the box) and begging for an advance on the ol allowance to go buy the latest kit i just had to have.
I even remember the first model kit i ever had, it was from MPC called 'ballon buster' and had a 1/72 Spad on a support arm flying over a vacuform shot down aireal ballon, and included a bunch of HO scale germans for my Spad to straf (i have since figured out this was the old Airfix series one Spad and of course the Airfix figures). After slapping that bad boy together and paining it purple (well, it SEEMED like a good idea at the time) I surely wanted more, and the lindberg line provided a bunch of kits that to my young eye looked great 9and were indeed crap, but hell, i loved em). next came those great Mongram working kits, you could build em and play with em, great value for a kid.
Then came the 1970s and kits got a little better, the first stuff from Japan started to filter in and the subject matter started to become larger. the other older guys will remember that in the old days, most model kits were US jets and a few WWII subjects thrown in, if you wanted something different, you might buy an Aurora kit (which rarely looked like what it was suppiosed to represent, for aircraft anyways). but the 70s changed that, kits from England (the immense Airfix range), france (heller) and of course the japanese companies like Hasegawa and tamiya opened up entire new worlds, replacing those beloved Monogram Navy models/toys with operating parts in my heart and on my shelf.
With the dawning of the 80s, I was fast approaching adulthood (which struck in the fall of 1980, although at heart I'm still that little guy that pained a Spad purple) but i managed to hold my hobby until about 1985, when it just didn't have the same charge anymore, as work and family had entered my life, and free time was gone. I dabbled at times, and even became decent at making them, (nowhere near what i see around here, but good enough to make me happy).
Then it was over, and that old box of unfinished kits bought from sales at squadron mailorder just sat in the basement unloved and unbuilt. to make things worse, my once perfect vision now required glasses, and my steady hands of youth were replaced by the current set plagued by arthritis. With a family to support there was also no money, and modern kids who wanted nothing to do with dear old dad's hobby, as it didn't involve computers, hip hop or gadgets.
If you have stayed with me this long, we are finally getting to teh coming home part. As i approach 50, I am now semi retired and have a lot more free time then before, so to get me out of her hair, the better half sugested I get a hobby. Well, i decided I liked the hobby I once loved and decided to make a kit again.
But where to get one, and they are all so expensive now! I decided ebay was my best bet, and something large I could see, so i bid on and one for the princely sum of 9 dollars a Revell Hurricane Mk II, a redo of a kit I had as a boy, and started fooling with it.
At first it didn't go well, the plastic was far more brittle then I thought, snapping the landing gear, and the decals disintigrated in water! (back to ebay for decals only to find nothing for Hurricane Mk IIs,) so i bought some roundels and hand painted the squadron codes myself (and if I ever figure out how to use a digital camera, i'll show you guys).
After completing her, I was unhappy with it, my hands just wern't so steady and I found a million little things I could have done better, but to my surprise everyone who saw it thought it looked great (and trust me with my family, they would have razzed me good if they hated it).
Thus my hobby was reborn in me, and here i am, posting on a model building forum in the 21st century.
I hope to add something to this place, as I already have taken quite a bit out from reading what you guys have to say.
And remember, go easy on the old man, afterall he's still really the kid with the purple Spad.