Hi All;
I am going to make known my feelings about nostalgia and history in Modeling . How many of you Know who Dr. Al Ross is ? I bet not many . He creates prototypes and improvements to kits for Bluejacket . Now , is he on the level of say , Shep Paine ?
Yes , and No . Al creates what the company feels is history .( he's darned good at it too ). He and his contemporaries have brought us much . Yes , he works in wood . So What ?
Now Shep took a pre-existing kit , and found stuff , worked wonders with it , and everyone tries to emulate Him . What's wrong with that ?
I tried to emulate the likes of The great bridge builders and hospital builders when younger . Does that make me a flop because I only did one of each .? Nope !
Mr. Roebling and Mr. F.L.Wright would understand .Yes ,this is in my past .That's where Nostalgia comes in . I see that bridge now and it looks like a great accomplishment . A formed , post stressed concrete girder Bridge .
Spanning the Arkansas River . Why ? someone had to build it . Now one I look Back ( Nostalgic ) I see a perfect structure with no flaws . Not true . Like many man made structures it has them . Small but there .
The Idea was fairly new for such a Length of span . and Heighth . It worked . Now getting back to models . How many have said repeatedly , " Oh , I wish I could find Airfixe's or Hawk's or Palmer,s or Strombecker's old model ? " Why ? Well think now .
As we sit down in the seat of our time machine and open the box in question . Old air whooshes out , wafts past our nostrils and engages the machine, the smell of old Balsa and plastic locking the time in the machine . ( How about that , Nasal control ? ) LOL.LOL.
Well , we are transported to a small bench , or card table sequestered in our room or the attic or basement , because the Grown Ups couldn't stand the smell of Ambroid or Revell type " S " cement for models .$. 98 . Geez , that was the going price for a model we wanted .
" $1.29 , my gosh , that's too expensive . " , so the bigger kit sat until someone else could buy it or we had saved anough to go back the Mr. Weldin's shop and buy it ." Well , look here son , Another one came in ". Yeah , I know better now ". Mr. Weldin saw the look in my eyes and after I left put the kit in back , knowing I would come back and buy it . He even made sure to call my Mum and ask if I could mow his lawn !
Don't laugh ! That lawn was a whole $2.00 lawn . That meant a treat at the Kensington matinee and ice cream after , Plus the model ! Mr. Weldin's shop was right around the corner from the theater we went to .
Okay , Snap ! ! We are at our bench , older , Wiser ( I would Hope ! ) and holding this old box of , " What is this ? My gosh the rivets on this , if it could be life sized are the size of half Golf balls . What was I thinking .?"
But you see , Nostalgia is like that . It blinds us to the flaws of a pleasurable event . At my age it doesn't happen less I want it to." Now where I put that old MONOGRAM Rubber Powered runabout Boat kit from 1954 that I got the other day ?"
See , we are all imprisoned by Nostalgia .But , let's NOT argue about the Merit of a Kit or Someone that we tried to emulate . There are still Car Customizers trying to get the Ed Roth look right . They ain't done it yet !
Nostalgia is a Condition . It takes us back , often to simpler times , all the flaws removed for our viewing pleasure . It is memories , edited for the viewing audience . Does anyone want to see a horror film .Well , some do and can't help it .
For the most part we don't . We see all these things of pleasure through 3-D - Glasses tinted a light gold . They weren't really like that . Guess what ? Nostalgia shows us otherwise ! !
If I could , the only thing I would wish to see is all the models I missed , on my bench at the price they sold for then . " Yeah Sure " and Mars is a Orange Slushie ! ! BYE