In 1957 i lived in Mill Valley California. We lived on the mountain called mt Tamalpais. Our house faced San Francisco. At the time there was a radar installation on the mt top run by the Air Force i think not certain. It was put there during ww 2 or there after. Anyway, we had a deck that my brother and i did our homework on and at times military aircraft would fly up the mountain hugging the ground to see i if they could sneek up on the guys at the radar station. fortunately for us the airplane would fly directly over our house maybe a hundred feet or so above. We loved it not so for my mom. We would try and identify the plane and we would buy that model for our collection. I was out one day waiting for them and lo and behold a flying wing flew over my first and only siting ever but no luck finding that model.
Hi John!
This sounds like it could be a great idea. I’ll give it a shot.
I had two uncles who were in the Navy during WWII. Below are 2 pics taken in around 1944. I was 4.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/QVT927i5wubbtexr8
The one with me, Oliver, was in the submarine service. The other, Dart, was in the Merchant Marines. He had 3 ships blown out from under him. The other gentleman in the one picture is my grandfather. When they got out of the service, every time they came to see us they brought a kit or some paint or some tool to help us build the models. Our parents told them to stop bringing the things because it was a waste of money and also a waste of our time. I’m glad they didn’t because I have never stopped building models all these years.
My brother had a nasty temper and if something went wrong with the build he would throw it against the nearest wall. So that meant more models for me. I destroyed my share after completion with my BB gun and fireworks. Wouldn’t do that now as I am proud to have some of my models in the local WWII museum and quite a few others are restorations of other models donated there over the years.
Stay safe.
Jim [cptn]
Jim, those are nice photos. I think you’ve shared them before.
I loved building things when I was young. Lego, Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys.
So I’m now an architect, go figure.
We raised our kid in Marin County, down on the shore in Tiburon.
The Air Force station was from the cold war and was built in the 1950s. A lot of it is still there. I had heard that it was a miserable place to be posted. Far from anything, but you could see millions of people going about their lives.
There were a number of Nike sites around it. One has a recently restored Nike missile in it’s bunker. Every now and then it’s raised out of the ground as if preparing to launch.
Bill
Hmmm!
Now that is interesting. I got into it quite by accident. I built a paper boat(I thought it was a P T Boat.) Didn’t look like much except a lot of badly cut and pasted pieces of paper my little green men made shore assaults with. It fell apart quickly. Oh Well! My grandpa saw that thing and that Christmas I got Revell’s Narrow Box-P.T.- 212 Yes! The Higgins boat with the heavy planking on the deck and all! Boy, was that fun! So there you have it. How I got my start into something that even made good money for me!
Great idea for a thread John!!!
Really interesting hearing how others got their start!!!
Me, the first kit I can remember was a Styracosaurus from the local K-Mart (remember those?). Yeah, I was a dino-nut kid.
Later I had the vintage Monogram P-38. I built it at my uncle’s house. He’d served in the Pacific and told me about seeing them flying above his landing ship. It blew my eight-year old mind!
Not sure how I came accross my first kit but it was a Tom Daniel Street Cleaner snap kit. I’m sure I thought it looked cool and mom said why not. I was about 7
My dad was in the Air Force and I grew up around airplanes and lived in or around AF/Navy/Marine air bases/air stations most of my life, including today - F-16s and F-35s fly over occasionally. I grew faciniated with flying things. Also, being a kid in the 70’s I was pretty enamoured with hotrods. My brothers were 10 and 8 years older had chevelles and mustangs. So I was drawn to airplanes and hotrods. Oh, and traveling to england a 5 or so I saw airliners for the first time and got a diecast concord. That bug stuck in my head but took 40 years or so to germinate before I started building airliners.
My parents bought me model kits when I was a child. I remember my first kits were an Aurora Hot Dog hotrod called “The Wurst”. My dad built it for me.
My second kit was the Monogram M48 Patton tank “Love Bug”. Both my dad and I worked on it.
Then I discovered the Aurora Prehistoric Scenes model kits. The Saber-Toothed Tiger and Allosaurus were my first two from that line. I eventually collected most of them.
Great thread! I got into modeling because when I was a kid, 6 maybe, my next door neighbour, who was a couple of years older, had some model planes. Airfix 1/72. when I saw them I was hooked.
Dodgy
When I was 5, my mom & dad gave me my first kit, a Model T. I think it was a Lindberg kit, but I don’t remember exactly. I do remember metal axles, and using Duco Household Cement to assemble it.
From there, Mom and Dad gave me simple kits. Since I was nuts about dinosaurs, they gave me all of the Pyro/Life-Like dinosaur kits. As I got older, I became interested in history, especially World War II, and so, I got ships, like Revell’s 1/720 Arizona and Pennsylvania (same sprues), and their larger ships, and airplanes-again, Revell, and Monogram.
As I got older and started getting an allowance, and then pay from various jobs, I started buying myself the kits. Though, I got the big Monogram kits for Christmas and my birthday. And I had an uncle who would take my to Kiddie City when we visited, and he would let me pick out a model and buy it for me.
All the while, I would read about the subjects, and watch movies and TV shows. That fueled my interest. And I got interested in science fiction, so I added those kits, too.
By the time I was in high school, I had discovered miniature figures, mostly Airfix, and from periods from Ancient Greece and Rome, to World War II.
But it was my parents and family who helped foster the interest, till I could keep it going on my own.
I started out by trying to do some things with my older brothers. They soon stopped and as usual turned their attention to other things and sometimes against me. I used modeling to have something to do that I was learning to do and to try to keep my distance from them as best as I could.
Eventually they left for college but I kept building, even after I was drafted and went into the Air Force.
I had two older brothers( 4 & 8 years older) and they built models which got me interested in the hobby. They quit modeling as they got older and discovered other interests but I kept modeling until my freshman year of high school. I didn’t start back into the hobby until my first year of teaching and a student’s father got me back into the hobby.
Plastic models came a little later. I loved builders models- tinkertoy, Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets and later Legos.
Bill
I remember receiving a model redstone rocket for my 10th birthday. After that it was balsa model airplanes. I stopped when I want away to college.
It started again when I was about 60 when my son gave me a Tamyia Abrams tank model. Since then I have been falling down the rabbit hole!
Yep! Yep! Yep! That’s what happens when you become a plasticaholic. [;)]
Stay safe.
Jim [cptn]
Cool story John! My intro into modeling isnt as cool but still interesting. Some of my earliest memories are actually watching my dad build model cars and RC cars in my grandparents garage, and eventually his own garage. I used to sit back and watch hoping he would involve me but he never did. When I was about 11 or so, he was building the 1/12 Monogram Camaro. He kept having trouble witht he paint and got frustrated. He boxed it all up and tossed it in the trash, and when he wasnt paying attention I dug it out and took it to my moms house the follwoing weekend. Hooked ever since. We moved so many times I eventually lost the car. BUt many years ago I bought one of the 90’s reissues and also the Foose branded re-issue. Hopefully in a few years when my boy is a few years older, we can build it together.
Same as the other hard cases here. In about 1960, my pal had a car model. And then the older brother of the kid across the street had a car model. (Golly, those things were expensive!). Then we say that the corner grocery store had a shelf of models, and some of the Lindberg kits were in my range at $.29. Add in the library books about those ships and aircraft, and the problem has ben cascading for the past 63 years without a pause.
What fun!
Rick