"Then" and Now

[Gene Elliott]

Let's see if this strikes a chord with you fine gentlemen. As I read these posts I realize that many of us are past the "second turn." We can remember doing chores, redeeming drink bottles, cutting somebody's grass, etc. to save the $7.95 for our first "big" engine, and you know what it was. Life was slower then, communication slower, and things took time. You had to walk all the way from the easy chair to the TV to change the volume. You glued something, pinned it and waited 24 hours. You ordered something from a catalog and waited two weeks. But every hardware store had model fuel. Everybody flew control line. People expected noise from the school yard.

Now, things cost more (we make more though) and we have a drawer full of engines and unbuilt kits on the shelf. Younger kids today don't know what the letters UC or CL mean and one has to order virtually everything.

Then . . . we dealt with challenges in our hobby, and now we still have them in a different perspective perhaps. Before we lament anything let's just remember HOW MUCH FUN AND EXCITING IT ALL STILL IS!

Thanks,
Gene (A 66 year old kid)

[Shultzie]

Gene...

I resemble that remark...I am 68 and could have kicked your cradle over.
Take a look back in time....huh?
Does this add bring a tear to your #5 reading glasses? 

[Randy Powell]

I'm a lot younger than you guys, but I remember all of that. Though the enigines were closer to $15.

[Keith Spriggs]

Gene...

I am 68 and could have kicked your cradle over.

All right you kids quit your bickering. I can say that because I am older than either of you  (69)

Thanks to both of you for reminding me how lucky we were and are.

PS This is something I have probably not ever told. When you mentioned picking up bottles I remember myself and a friend picking up bottles (2 cents each)until we had enough for a bottle of "pop" each and a 1/4 pound of peanuts (10cents). Once in awhile we would be 1 or 2 bottles short and we would stop by the back of the old mans store where he kept the returned bottles and pick up 1 or 2.

[Bill Gruby]

HEY ALL YOU GUYS

   Gene thanks for the ride. "Shultzie I remember the 25th Anniversary Sale. And Keith, I am younger than you but I remember Hector Frascador had the corner "Grocery Store" (remember them) We used to stock the shelves for him every Wednesday and get paid a quart of soda and a 5 cent bag of "State Line Potato Chips" We were in heaven. Each of the cans was marked with a "Rubber Stamp" and ink pad.
   YEEEEEEEEES I am still having fun. 

         "Billy G" 

[Roger Vizioli]

Shultzie,
Thanks for including the "Order Blank" in your Post.
Just sent in my order and got to use that $.03 stamp I have been saving.
Roger

[Keith Spriggs]

Shultzie,
Thanks for including the "Order Blank" in your Post.
Just sent in my order and got to use that $.03 stamp I have been saving.
Roger

I wish I had known that you were ordering,Roger. I would have you order me the four 25 cent books. I would especially like to have the "Gas Model Plane Construction" because it has "The Answer to Every Problem You Will ever Meet"

[Gene Elliott]

Shultzie,

Ah yes! How could I have forgotten AHC? I really looked forward to their circulars and regularly ordered from them. They carried a brand of engine named Flash and to my knowledge was the only source. I never had one and didn't know anyone who did.  What fun.

Gene

[Shultzie]

This morn. After taking that old mag-rag with the AHC add out from under the scanner. I couldn't help but notice an old LOCKHEED T-94c STARFIRE!

Sad to KNOW just how old and demented I am getting...that I had forgotten how I looked forward to seeing those "PLANES WORTH MODELING" in those early issues.

Bjorn Karlstrom's art is still coveted today as much as it was then..SIMPLY AMAZING DETAIL that would keep me occupied with a magnifying glass during study hall the 7th grade in VanMeter, Iowa...along with checking out the sports pages to see how my next door neighbor BOB FELLER was doing in the major leagues.
 Bob Feller used to play catch with me and taught me how to throw my first curve ball and spit ball.
He and his Dad hired me to help with barn chores and to "cut butterprint" weeds out of his fathers Soybean crop each year.
(My left arm still has the scar where I almost cut my life away!) Thanks be to the Good Lord above and Bob's dad who heard my screams, who hopped off his tractor and wrapped my arm tightly and wisked me off to the doctor's office for stitches.

 Later that afternoon, I was back in that field cutting BUTTERPRINT again...so that I could send off an ORDER FOR MY FIRST BIG ENGINE FROM AHC to power my Kenhi BobCat.
Bob yelled at me to STOP!!! Ran over and handed me enough money to buy that old OK Cub .29 but they were sold out....
and AHC substituted a Forster 29 instead. (Perhaps a far better choice anyway. MAN, DID THAT NEW BOB CAT SKOOOT'-N' SCREAM  WITH THAT BIG FORSTER sittin up front.

Check out Bj's Karlstrom bio on:
www.hobby.se/BjornKarlstrom/BjornKarlstromE.html

[Leester]

Hey Shultzie, If you get a hankerin to build one of those F-94C's Larry Richards of Richards kits has a kit of it.  www.richardskits.net

[Marvin Denny]

 Durn bunch of young whippersnappers!!! ain't none of you dry behind the ears yet!!! how about Megow Rubber kits for a nickel at the "five and dime" store and LePages cement??


  Bigiron

[Shultzie]

Marvin..Leester and Shultz!
Sounds like a good name for a Firm of Lawyers...n' old model builder koots?
Hey thanks Leester for the link:
And yes...that would really make a good lookin semiscale stunter...but WOW, that long nose would really test the dynamical' envelopity?

[Charlie Pate]

Any of you old "codgers" every see a Forster 99?. I did .It was in a hugh high wing c/l plane.
Back then ,I used to get at a contest right after sun up and run from one end of the field to the other
all day afraid I would miss something I had never seen before.Model flying was not as popular in
Tenn. as in calif ect.. Speed jobs, dyna Jets,Wakefields; Each new model type was like christmas
morning.Sometimes at a contest,Christmas would come three or four times in one day!
                             Those were the days

[Roger Vizioli]

Marvin, aka Big Iron,
Thanks!
Have not been called a young whippersnapper in  *# years!
Roger
ps See ya at Brodaks, we can have that cup of coffee ( or ?  )  we missed in Savannah.   
Roger

[Marvin Denny]

  Roger, we are definitely still planning to be there.  I plan on getting there on monday around noon.  We are staying in the comfort inn in Waynesburg, and will be under a RED shade awning at the site.

  Marvin Denny  aka  Bigiron   PS   Did you ever get up to the museum in savannah?

[Roger Vizioli]

Marvin,
Same hotel.
Not sure which canopy we will have. Probably yellow and black.
Savannah will be a stop on the way home from Brodaks.
Roger

[john e. holliday]

Gene thanks for the memories.  I looked at the date and that was the year I made it past the 8th grade.  Was always a trouble maker and Mrs. Franklin told me if I didn't straighten up I would be back at Pomroy Grade School for another year.  And to the old timers, after the folks moved to southern Mo. my Junior year,  AHC was my main source of supplies.  Of course one of my brothers would bring me some fuel from Charlies's Hobby Shop in KCK once in awhile.  Had to shut gate to barn yard so I could fly.  DOC Holliday