Stuff I Used to Do

Lately I've been thinking about the stuff I used to do.

Like many kids, I used to collect stamps. I remember having this catalogue where I would carefully place the stamps I had collected. I remember going to the store (which store? a stamp store? a hobby shop? Where was it? How did I get there?) and buying a bunch of stamps in some kind of wax paper packet and then trying to match up each stamp with its image in my catalogue. There was all kinds of information provided about the stamp, but I wasn't particularly interested in any of it. Having a stamp match its picture in the catalogue was more than enough gratification for me. I also remember the excitement I felt when the stamp was from an exotic place like Fiji or Missouri. I believe my earliest feelings of wanderlust were fed by this activity. What a glorious day it was when I actually set foot in...Missouri.

I used to oil paint by numbers. I preferred the "male themed" templates: mountain ranges, jungle animal scenes, cowboys around the ol' campfire, or gangsters holding up a bank. Occasionally, when the stock at Woolworth's or Kresge's was low, my mother would buy me a lovely ballet scene or one of those hummingbird/flower ones. She'd apologize but I'd paint the sucker anyway. Hey, a true artist should be able to tackle any subject matter. I remember never being able to wait until one color dried before moving on to the next color. That quirk, combined with a set of hands and fingers that could only be described as PUDGY, caused me to run two or three colors together wherever they intersected causing a little Jackson Pollock effect in most of my paintings. As a matter of fact, you had to stand about 50 feet back from any of my completed paintings to glean even the faintest idea of what they were meant to portray. Teddi feigned pride in my artistic achievements, but I'm pretty sure she was as disgusted as everybody else.

I used to play basketball at the local YMHA. Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon we were given free reign to play pickup games. I don't mean to brag, but I was hardly ever the last one picked. There were two or three regulars even more spastic than I. My specialty was in-bounding the ball. I rarely threw it to the wrong team. On offense I was positioned at the top of the key, where I assumed the role of an interested observer. On those rare occasions when the ball came my way, I was immediately greeted by the sound of frantic teammates urging me to pass it back to them. Dribbling was not even on the radar screen. On defense, I played zone, even if the rest of the team played man-to-man. I carved out a small area of the court and patrolled it faithfully, like an old watch dog. If any of the opposition happened to enter this small area, I would make sure they felt my presence and left quickly. In this way I was able to rest in preparation for the inevitable long trek to the other side of the court. I am proud to say that during the four or five years I engaged in this rigorous activity, I never got a rebound. I also remember the disappointment I felt when it turned out that my team was "skins" not "shirts." It may come as a shock to those of you who know me now, but as a youth I was...chubby, with breasts that would have been the envy of any 13-year-old girl. I was the opposite of "cut." I guess you could say I was "rolled." Needless to say, I much preferred being a "shirt." But hey, you have to play the hand you're dealt, right?

But of all the stuff I used to do, model building was certainly my favorite activity. For one thing, I could snack while I was doing it, something I found very hard to do during basketball. I remember three model kit makers from those days: Revell, Aurora, and Ideal. I was a Revell man all the way. In my expert opinion, no other kit maker offered the level of detail and authenticity that Revell did. I considered all the other companies "second division" and faithfully returned to the Revell kit catalogue each time. I might have been a geek, but I was a discriminating one at least. Of all the types of models available at that time, I preferred warships and tanks. Remember, WWII was still fresh in everyone's mind then and there was a certain childish pride in building a model of a tank that defeated Rommel or a battleship that helped us win the Battle of Midway. I certainly was a big fan of the US of A! I took great care during my model building sessions. I would set up a card table and carefully lay out all of the necessary equipment, like a surgeon prepping for an operation. A tube of model glue here near my left hand, the decals off to the side, hopefully far away from the glue tube, a scissors to help snip off the smaller pieces, and, always accessible, the directions. Yes, friends, in those days I followed the directions to the letter. It's funny to realize that following directions is a trait that somehow left me at some point in my life, probably around the time I had to assemble the first Big Wheel for Matt or Josh. Now, when I purchase something that needs assembly, I make a phone call. But back in the day I was a dedicated follower of Dr. Revell's directions. I can distinctly remember looking at step number 5 and thinking, "That can't be right," but faithfully following orders anyway only to discover that step number 7 required step number 5 to have been completed exactly as written. As I've said before, I was and still am a big fan of symmetry.

The more expensive the model was, the more likely it was to have moving parts: guns that could raise or lower, wheels that turned, ailerons and rudders that operated. One had to be very careful in one's use of glue to make sure these movable parts actually moved. Alas, the pudgy fingers I alluded to earlier were again a problem. The glue, rather than gently coming out in manageable droplets would splurt out with the force of Old Faithful, causing all the parts, the directions, and my snack to be sadly fused together into some kind of bizarre multi-media modern sculpture. (Max Ernst meets George Patton.) After tearing away the directions and rubbing off my snack, the tank or battleship would again take its natural shape; however, things that were supposed to raise, lower, or rotate would be stubbornly immobile. It used to sadden me to think that I had rendered this magnificent fighting machine completely defenseless. The only way it could fire upon the Nazi or Japanese hoard effectively would be if it happened to be facing the exact right way! That's no way to run a war, friends. Anyway, the final step was always the application of the decals. Again, my impatience would get the better of me and, instead of waiting for the warm water to detach the decal from its paper, I would tug at the decal prematurely causing it to rip in the middle. This necessitated a very careful grafting of the two halves of the decal so that the rupture in the middle would not be noticeable to the naked eye. No problem. Teddi loved all of my sad models and so did I.

So that's some of the stuff I used to do. Most of these activities came to an end in March of 1962 when Ada Ernest foolishly agreed to dance with me at a YMHA-Hecht House social.

There were no directions for what followed.

Ain't life grand?

Love,
J