My first model was built in 1967 or 1968. I was seven or eight years old and in a magazine there was an advertisement for a plastic model of the Apollo lunar lander. I got my parents to agree to give me the required dime and 2 cents of postage. I filled out the form, taped the dime to the card and I mailed away for the kit. Then, just like Ralphie in A Christmas Story, I waited and waited and ...... waited for what seemed like an eternity for the kit to arrive and when it did I was so excited to build it out but glue was required. Model cement. I had mucilage and while I attempted to make it work - it didn't. The mucilage simply dried while I held the pieces in place then peeled off the joints in little crusty shards. Putting this model together required real model cement. Airplane glue! There was none of that in the house so I had to go outside and get some change from my father to go to Nicholl's Variety and get some airplane glue.
Asking my father for the cost of airplane cement was hard enough but that was compounded by the fact that my father happened to be at the top of a 20 foot ladder painting the siding on the gable end of the house when I asked him. He was not too pleased to be disturbed while balancing a can of paint in one hand and a brush in the other but he managed to climb down the ladder and gave me a quarter so I could go off to the store and he could go back to his balancing on a rather unsteady ladder. That afternoon, as I happily built the lunar lander, I became a plastic modeller and I have enjoyed the hobby ever since.
Stephen Obermeyer, 2014
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