FRIENDS

It always began with a newspaper. That ritual of 1950’s youth called model building always began by spreading newspaper over the dining room table to protect the carefully hand-rubbed finish from the rigors of toxic substances with names like “Testors” and “Type S”. Imagine the horror of it all if OSHA or the FDA had been in business back then – there were no warning labels but all we had to do to survive was open a window. However, I digress. The model box itself would be opened after the ceremonial cutting of the dealer-applied Scotch tape on the side panels to prevent critical small plastic parts from falling out in your bicycle basket on the ride home from the hobby shop. Then, with all the pomp and precision of a surgeon preparing his instruments, the parts ‘trees’, wings, fuselage halves, decals and direction sheet would be removed from the box and laid out on the table in preparation for assembly of the model’s subsections.

Mom’s hat pin – you know, the one with the white pearl on the end – was mustered into action to pierce the applicator tip of the cement tube, and you were ready to begin. Small square bottles of paint (that cost all of 19 cents in those days) were lined up in a row with your trusty detail brush at the ready. White for the pilot’s helmet, olive green for his flight suit, red for the air intakes, silver for the landing gear struts, and black for the tires and anti-glare panel. Advanced modelers would mix green and yellow together (preferably flat) to make the color of Zinc Chromate to be applied to the insides of landing gear doors and dive brakes. I believe we called that “super detailing” back in the pre-IPMS dark ages.

Amid the delicious elixir of aromas that only plastic modeling can elicit, upper and lower wing halves were soon joined, fuselage halves followed, and then what began to resemble the production line of any of the major aircraft manufacturing companies in America slowly took shape, albeit in much smaller scale, right there on the dining room table. Finally, assembly of the model itself was finished, although lacking any of the markings as seen on the kit’s enticing box art. That was an easy fix however, as a small cereal bowl made its appearance from the cupboard and was filled with lukewarm tap water.

Then came another ritual - the application of the decals. Neophytes had to deal with that long “U.S. AIR FORCE” title on the center fuselage of the F-106 Delta Dart where you could barely reach because of the long delta wing below, or heaven forbid the gently curving “TRANS WORLD AIRLINES” logotype above the windows on that Super-G Constellation. Problem was, although it was supposed to go on the model itself, the long thin strip of decal would somehow wind itself around your finger and you had only so many critical seconds to get it back in the water and hopefully straightened out. Expert modelers had figured out the trick of holding the paper backing right up to the model and then sliding the long thin decal into place.

Days later, you couldn’t help but admire the finished product sitting there proudly atop your dresser, bookcase, or an appropriate shelf. Maybe you would add a few finishing touches, but when the model was completed, it became a proud addition to your growing fleet of aircraft, ships, armor, or automobiles. The only thing better than the experience I just described was sharing that same experience with a friend, and this is where modeling as we knew it provided outstanding lessons in life such as cooperation, collaboration, coordination, and team work. Lastly, it allowed you to share the cost of acquiring the model, in many cases boosting your earning power from a 79-cent kit to a stratospheric $1.49, or perhaps even two 98-cent kits to take home and work on together.

Pictured above are the members of Cub Scout Pack 22, Bellport, New York as seen in the spring of 1956. (Your author is second from left.) Who can forget that magical year? The rocket-powered Bell X-2 was making its quest for reaching Mach 3 out in California, Boeing’s prototype 707 was giving the world a glimpse of the coming commercial jet age, and all the classic ocean liners were plying routes from numerous foreign shores to the U.S. Better yet, you could build models of all these aforementioned subjects with stellar new kits being released almost every week. We watched “Sky King” on Saturday mornings, “Whirleybirds” on Tuesday nights, and “The Mickey Mouse Club” every afternoon at 5:00. For a kid, it just didn’t get any better than that.

Just look at all those happy kids in the picture. My friend Tommy on the left was a very cool guy who liked building models of sailboats and sailing ships, and was an absolute whiz at complicated rigging. His Dad was very cool too and drove a small funny looking foreign car with wire wheels – something called an MG. Jay to my right liked building models of airliners ‘cause his Dad was a Captain for Pan American and flew an airplane called the Stratocruiser. Wayne on the extreme right was into building kits of military planes and probably had the largest plastic Air Force in town. Not pictured here, but the local “ace of the base” was Bobby, the biggest kid on the block who got a model of the Revell USS Forrestal for his birthday, and who kept it proudly displayed (at eye level, of course) in his Mom’s China cabinet in the dining room.

For me, that time period was a very magical and almost surreal environment where daily worries involved things like homework, your paper route, or saving up for a 98-cent model kit when you were getting an allowance of only ten cents a week. And yet, my friends were such special people who shared the love of model building and all that it represented. They were my first team members, my first squadron, and my first office mates all in one, and I’ll bet they’re still out there somewhere building models to this very day (although they were probably acquired on eBay).

At least I hope they still are.