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Model Making: Serious Fun for the Not-So-Young
| Article
# : |
12964 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1987 |
1,779 Words |
| Author
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Tom Nugent
Tom Nugent teaches journalism at the University of Maryland
in
Baltimore. His works include Death at Buffalo Creek,
published
by W.W. Norton. |
On a recent weekday evening in suburban Washington, D.C., a forty-four-year-old U.S. Defense Department analyst named Ken Robert jumped happily to his feet.
"The blue ribbon!" roared the balding, wild-eyed builder of model airplanes, whose entry had just snagged first place in Washington's annual plastic-model competition, "I can't believe it!"
The crowd of plastic modelers, about fifty of whom had gathered at a Rockville, Maryland, junior high school for the 1987 Washington-area competition, swirled and jostled around the scarlet-hued North American TR-6 Texan airplane that had just landed Ken Robert first prize in the "special category" of scale replicas.
"Nice going, Ken!" boomed Robert's friend Mike Fleckenstein, a computer operations manager for the federal government. "You did a hell'uva job on that one, pal." Then, while Robert danced euphorically around his winning model - the mob closing in for congratulations - the graying, bespectacled Fleckenstein, who currently serves as president of the Washington chapter of the International Plastic Modelers Society (IPMS), did his best to describe the world of model building:
"You can see what it's done to us," cried the enthusiastic builder of scale-model airplanes and ships. "He's gone bald - and I'm already gray!"
Once upon a time, the art of model building - creating scale replicas of airplanes, tanks, and ships - belonged to children. Legions of eager boys saved their pennies to buy the latest
... (1998 of 10368 Characters)
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