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Topic starter
23/03/2022 5:45 am
BEING A KID AGAIN!
While sipping my coffee this morning and browsing at my car shelves, I remember some of the crude examples of diecast cars around when I was a kid. The attached story below from my files came to mind, so I dug it out. As the saying goes, "We've come along ways baby". 
I think "crude" is a good way to describe these 60's examples. I remember kids having some of them. but not me. I did however, have plastic models. The first one I remember getting was a '58 Plymouth, and I had a '60 Chrysler. Before I knew it I was regularly picking up new JoHan models at a Hobby Shop on Payne Ave. in St. Paul. Eventually my cars were becoming a collection, as I continued to get more and more of them. For a teenager, having sixty-one model cars was for sure a collection.
I had them lined up on a shelf in my bedroom. One sad day, we had a kitchen fire. My bedroom wall being on the other side of the kitchen wall, produced heat from the fire that was so intensive, all of my models melted right in to the wall. The smell of the burnt plastic was strong and awful. Of the many things that were destroyed by the fire, most of it could be and was replaced. But not my model cars, and I was devastated that I'd lost them all in this weird way. It was a horrific loss at my young age.
Flash forward to the fall of 1989 when I saw an ad in the Sunday supplement magazine "Parade" in the newspaper for the Danbury Mint 1957 (Blue) Chevy Bel-Air convertible. I could almost literally feel my eyeballs pop out on to the newspaper like they do in cartoons. I'd never heard of diecast, but it sure grabbed my attention, looking so detailed and perfect in the ad. Remembering my plastic models, I just had to order that Chevy.
Well you know the rest of the story, as after receiving the model, I was hooked. And I was then building a new collection, with each new car received being seemingly better replicated than the last one I'd gotten. I was like a kid again as I watched my collection grow, and I'll tell you it couldn't grow fast enough. This morning and always, as I enjoy my diecast cars, I relive fond memories every time I look at them.,
It's time for a second cup and more looking!
George Schire
Oakdale, Minnesota
Topic starter
23/03/2022 11:33 am
For the last two days we had a tease of spring. Temps in the upper 50's and even a 60. I wake up this morning, and it's snowing and we're only going to get to 37 (so they say), which is (so they say) 10 degrees below average. And the next week (their never right 7 day forecast), temps are only going to reach in to the 30's, cloudy and windy. Thanks again for my car collection and some other hobbies, as winter continues to rear its ugly head here in Minnesota.
George Schire
Oakdale, Minnesota
23/03/2022 2:22 pm
Winter left Southern California mid-January. Today it's supposed to his 87 degrees. 82 now. I may have to put the a/c on!
23/03/2022 3:57 pm
Being a kid again? In the early '50s, when I was 12 or so I discovered something new at Woolworth's 5 & 10, Revell's Highway Pioneers. The black plastic Model T Ford, the Stanley Steamer, and, of course, that yellow Stutz Bearcat. My kid brother was threatened with the bloodiest of mayhem if he stepped onto my half of our shared bedroom, enamel paint spotted my desk with its forgotten books, and ruined, crumpled remnants of glue tubes cluttered around. And then came Revell's series 2 and then 3 and when Series 4 contained a new in every way Jaguar XK-120, I nearly exploded. Or maybe it was because that was about the time I discovered girls.
Today I'm no longer a child, so I go off the my grown-up stuff, like income tax prep, lawn fertilizer, and, more importantly, the Diecast Zone. But beyond my serious 1/43 collection in which I have sunk my children's inheritance is one dark corner that I still favor:
Topic starter
23/03/2022 4:38 pm
Winter left Southern California mid-January. Today it's supposed to his 87 degrees. 82 now. I may have to put the a/c on!
You're an evil man Pete. 
We won't see 87 degrees here until June.
George Schire
Oakdale, Minnesota
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