A brief history

These events are linked, but as I'm trying to keep this brief, I won't necessarily take the time to explain how and why.

1959: I am 5 years old and I tell my folks that what I want for my birthday is a plastic model kit of an F-86 Saber jet. We live in a very small town with a population of just over 1,000. The only plastic models are sold at the local drug store. My dad buys me a Revell Snark missile.

I build it anyway.

I realize that it’s not going to be easy trying to explain the difference between a jet fighter plane and a guided missile to my father, a Lutheran pastor.

1961: I’ve saved my allowance and dried enough dishes for my mom (@$.15 per episode) to have purchased a half dozen or so models. Of course they are all fighter planes. I go to the Rexall Drug store and buy the models myself. My dad and I have agree that works better for both of us.

1961: Firestone runs its annual Indy Champions advertisement in Life Magazine and I decide that those cars are pretty cool. Now I want to build race cars.

Rexall Drug has a few kits of sedans and hot rods. This is going to be tougher than I thought.

Christmas 1961: My best friend Terry gets an Aurora HO racing set. We spend the next 5 days at his dining room table wearing out the cars.

1962 - 1965:

I continue to purchase models, but they are still mostly fighter planes. The pharmacist explains that he doesn’t get to select the 6 or 7 model kits that come in every few months.

I still don’t own an HO racing set. Our family can’t afford to give presents like that. Mom tells me that when I’m 12 I can get a paper route and earn enough to buy my own racing set. I have to content myself with racing at Terry’s house and looking at the pictures of slot car sets in the Sear’s Christmas catalogue.

May 1965: Jim Clark wins the Indianapolis 500 in a super cool green car. Now I’m really hooked on race cars.

July 1965: TIME magazine profiles Jim Clark in a cover story. I learn about Grand Prix racing for the first time. I want to be Jim Clark.

August 1965: My father has accepted a call to Kalispell, Montana. I am very excited; we’re moving to a town in the Rocky Mountains with a population of 12,000 and it is sure to have more places than just a single drug store selling models and slot cars.

August 25, 1965: We arrive in Kalispell. The next day I visit Wheaton Cycle & Toy. There are two aisles filled with plastic models and one aisle devoted to HO racing sets ,Aurora and Tyco cars. There aren’t any 1/24 or 1/32 cars though.

November 25, 1965: My 12th birthday. Mom says I can get a paper route. I do.

November 25, 1966: I buy a BIG Aurora racing set with my earnings as my birthday gift to myself. The two cars that come in the set are a Ford GT-40 in British Racing Green and a Corvette Stingray in tan. I assemble the set and set it up in the basement on several plywood sheets.

1967: I’ve constructed some scenery after frequent visits to the Ben Franklin Crafts store. I have a dozen or so cars. I’ve replaced the stock tires with the super slicks. I’ve added racing numbers to my Ford GT-40, still the best car in my little collection. I start high school that fall. Around October, a local businessman announces that he is building a commercial slot track which will be in a storefront just 10 minutes from my home (and 2 minutes from Wheaton Cycle & Toy). Wheaton Cycle & toy starts stocking 1/24 cars.

1968: I buy a Cox Dino Ferrari and a Cox BRM F1. I think they are pretty hot. One day at the track some guy a few years older shows up with a car in a clear vacuum formed body with a brass rod chassis and spongy tires. His car laps my Dino Ferrari every 3 times around the track. The commercial slot track closes. It might have been open 9 months. I put my Dino Ferrari and BRM in the closet.

1969: Girls.

1970: Girls and a Girlfriend I keep my 4.0 average in high school but the slot cars and models start gathering a lot of dust.

1971-5: I'm off to University. There are some girls (now women) in this period too, but it's a bit of a blur. One day, shortly before I graduate from college, my mom informs me that she sold my slot car set and the cars in the closet at a garage sale. She sends me the $20. I’m actually quite upset about losing the Ford GT-40 and the Cox BRM.

1975-7: Graduate school. See above. I forgive mom.

1977: I have my Masters degree in International Economics, a job waiting in New York with Chase Manhattan Bank and a wife.

1977-1997: New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York, Hong Kong, New York. My son, David is born in 1984, my daughter, Annie is born in 1986. When David turns six, I buy him a huge HO racing set. I put it up in the basement. David isn’t all that interested. David is into computers and role-playing games. I take up painting miniature figures with him. It isn’t model cars, but it’s fun. Annie is into computers and every sport under the sun. I become a “soccer dad”.

2002: David is off to college, Annie is in high school, I’m single and looking for a new job. I’ve decided that after living my life in rather large cities, I’m going back to the mountains and my home state.

2003-present: I have the good fortune to get a great job in Helena, Montana. I meet Sarah and we get married in 2004. I discover that I love dogs. (That’s another story for some other forum). And then one day about 18 months ago I ask myself.. I wonder what’s happened to slot cars over the last 15 years? I ‘google’ slot cars. The addiction begins. I’m searching for a 12-step program now.