In our time kids built everything, forts in the woods, boats, soap box karts, go karts, motor bikes, anything we could mount a horizontal shaft 2.5 hp motor on. Kids fell asleep with Popular Mechanics and woke up anxious to try anything. We’d spend hours pouring over the “Monkey Wards” catalogue. Later we tinkered with our first cars, Bondo patching rust and tuning up the old flat head. We could do anything and most kids learned from others. When the model airplane bug came around almost everyone became involved to some degree, for some they stayed with it, forever dreaming of flying. It was a hands-on time when physically creating something had importance, accomplishment and value, we were talented and wanted more.
It’s a very different place today. Consider how people well before us left the farm to learn a trade, kids today have little desire to spend time in the basement shop, if there is a shop, it’s not for them. They are challenged to absorb and keep up in an ever changing world of technology beyond their imaginations. It’s their future to evolve into. I see it clearly with my grandkids, even the ones I built their own planes with their name in graphics on it. Well I tried, it’s not any fault of theirs. Their spectrum of curiosity is completely opposed to ours of 50 years ago. We can’t blame them, because they have no interest in what they view as “the farm” we cherished so much. Good for them, we must wish them well, they will need it.
Reluctant as it is for some here, the sooner we stop wondering what it will take to develop young people’s interest in our life's passion, the easier we will come to realize it's a done deal. Give it up. Yes it’s sad to go out flying by ourselves and see clubs diminish. As a dying breed facing the inevitable end to something we have always enjoyed, it's now our time to go out with gusto so let it rip!! Nothing is forever, enjoy it as long as your body allows. Accept it once we are gone our faded, dust covered treasures weakened from hand me down moves through the youngsters' attics and basements will surely find their final landing places….the trash receptacle, and that's not far off for many of us. But most importantly, you will always be part of a select group that experienced the addictive fragrance of burned castor oil, something the younger generation will never do.