Thanks, Al.
My 11th birthday party placed into my hands the fabulous Monogram B-58
Hustler, with patented weapons-drop action! From then until the fall of
my twenty-first year, I built many plastic kits. Then I left for the University,
and slipped into what our Lego-building cousins call “The Dark Ages”…when
youthful hobbies are set aside in the quest for an education, a career,
a house and family…a time when some of us are lost forever.
But not all. Some of us finally come to our senses and re-emerge from
the dark, to resume our childhood passion. When I did in 1997, it was
gratifying to see how far kit quality had evolved in the interim. No more
‘Famous Fighters’ with vague shapes, engraved insignia, and
ridiculous rivets. Kits now are accurate, detailed, researched, crafted,
and finished way beyond anything we could have imagined back then.
Still, something was missing. I found I still enjoyed acquiring ancient
1960s kits, fondling their few, brightly-colored parts, looking over anew
their instructions and remembering building them so long ago…even
(a sacrilege in an age of eBay collectors!) building them once again.
I even found and re-built that old Monogram Hustler!
Seeing the museum-quality jobs my fellow members of the NorthWest Scale
Modelers and Seattle IPMS were doing, I thought there must be something
wrong with me. Their work on great modern kits from Tamiya, Eduard, and
Accurate Miniatures yielded masterpieces. Was I suffering from some rare
perversion, a ‘disease’ of inexplicable and unconscienceable
nostalgia for the old plastic…just me?
Then I came across Internet Modeler, and found Al’s Old Kit Corner.
What joy and relief! --Someone else liked to play with the old stuff!
--And he was popular and influential enough to have a following for a
monthly column!
More than that, he was a real guy. You could write to him and get timely
replies. Al personally enlightened me about the loss of the old Pyro model
molds for their horse-drawn, steam-powered, turn-of-the-last century firefighting
equipment. He related some of the silly saga of the Aurora Me-109 and
FW-190, and shared with me a liking for the old Fokker Dr.1 Triplane.
He even ‘suckered’ me into writing a ‘guest’ review!
I’m making great efforts to improve my modeling skills…really,
I am. I’m starting to tackle the superb modern kits available today,
so much more advanced than what I played with way back in my ‘Calvin-esque’
days. (Named after Bill Watterson’s great series of cartoons about
Calvin and Hobbes’ efforts to build a Phantom jet…which disappointingly
turns out nothing like the box art, even though they spend a whole afternoon
on it!)
But when I need a break…just something to relax with, something
low-key, something to bring on a quiet, nostalgic smile, I’ll still
play with an old kit, and rest serene in the knowledge that least one
other modeler approves. Al Supercynski may not be physically with us any
longer, but his presence remains, and his greatness transcends any need
for us to mourn him. We are left only to carry on his philosophy as tribute
to him, and I’m confident that that’s all he would want.
“Build what YOU want, the way YOU want to, and above all have
fun."
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