THE CLUBHOUSE

I was surprised just now when someone from my old high school (Forest Hills HS, Queens, NY) posted the below photo on the HS FB page .... I swear I felt the room spin for a minute ... those of you who saw my interview on a recent MCTV episode might remember my recalling how, after coming the the USA in 1972 aged 11, I discovered Aurora model kits in a luncheon/stationary store near where I lived ... this photo captures the scene ...

... the three tall skyscrapers on the left of the photo are the "Birchwood Towers" .... I lived for 9 years on the 23rd floor of the bottom tower, closest to the left side of the photo ...

... the photo, taken in the 1970s, shows nearby 108th Street .... and at the corner on the bottom right, you see ... the "Luncheonette Stationary" shop where it all began for me ... my interest in models that is ... as I recall, once you walked in, the luncheonette was to the left, straight ahead and right were newspapers and books, and at the very right hand side ... was the wall full of shelves with Aurora dinosaur and monster models ... oh I just got those chills again ... I bought many an Aurora Dinosaur/Kong/Godzilla model there, glued them together, and displayed them on a bookcase in my room ... oh where has the time gone ...

I probably got hooked watching my father building one the Twenty Mule Team kits that you had to order from Borax.

I must have been about four years old at the time, so probably 1966.

In any event, when I was five the local convenience store had one of the Aurora Blackbeard kits in the window and I just had to have it. I begged and pleaded for what seemed weeks until my parents shelled out the 98 cents to buy it for me and I put it together as fast as I could.

I never painted it, I just looked at that pirate day and night, proud of what I built and so amazed that something like that even existed.

From there, like many of us, it was the Aurora monsters, and then cars, planes, ships... until in my late teens and early twenties I stopped.

But when the father of one of my close friends died his widow gave me some of the wooden ship kits he'd purchased and my interest in the hobby was renewed.

In my forties I happened to be browsing in a hobby shop for a new ship to build and stumbled on the Polar Lights/Playing Mantis Wolfman kit by Randy Bowen and bought it on a lark. I thought it might be fun to revisit my childhood. Well, inside the box was not just a kit that was a far cry from the old Aurora Wolfman but also a flyer for Amazing Figure Modeler magazine. I had no idea the resin world was even a thing (I lead a very sheltered life in Montreal )

Since then my hobby has become not just a pastime but also as a way for me to decompress from stressful work days. And lately I've even been able to confess to myself that it's helped me reevaluate my own opinion of myself.. that maybe I can consider myself to be even the tiniest bit of an artist.

That's a pretty powerful thing for a hobby to do...

derekc62 wrote:I probably got hooked watching my father building one the Twenty Mule Team kits that you had to order from Borax.

*SNIP*

Since then my hobby has become not just a pastime but also as a way for me to decompress from stressful work days. And lately I've even been able to confess to myself that it's helped me reevaluate my own opinion of myself.. that maybe I can consider myself to be even the tiniest bit of an artist.

That's a pretty powerful thing for a hobby to do...

Awesome story! And oh-so-true!!!

Forest Hills ? That's where the rich kids lived

Caldor at Old Saybrook, Conn. I bought the Aurora Frankenstein for .99 cents and was hooked.
Steve

WC Grants for models in Enfield, CT and the nearby pharmacy for the Comic books/MAD magazines!

We'd ride our bikes up there every month to search for new stuff!

Great photo btw!! Fun times!

spock wrote:Forest Hills ? That's where the rich kids lived

THAT part of Forest Hills was up near Austin Street ... this section was more pedestrian ...

Since I grew up on a farm in rural Kentucky in the 60's & 70's, model kits of any kind were hard to come by. If I wanted a kit, I would order it direct from Aurora & wait seemingly forever for it to arrive in the mail, or I would wait patiently until the family was going into town for something and hope that the local Western Auto Store would have it, or wait until we visited my aunt & uncle in Louisville and hit a department store or, more thrillingly, a real hobby store. At the time it was extremely frustrating...looking back now the adventure of tracking down the kit I wanted was kinda fun. Much like grail hunting now I guess.

People nowadays look at you askew when you tell them that Western Auto stores
were great places to find ALOT of the Aurora kits and other kits back in the day.

Buc Wheat wrote:People nowadays look at you askew when you tell them that Western Auto stores
were great places to find ALOT of the Aurora kits and other kits back in the day.

The 1968 grand opening of the store that got my Aurora craze started. (Yes, that is a conquistador. The county has a big Hernando Desoto thing as a tourism angle.)