This Silly Week
entry will explain the rest of my entries. I live in the same town, and count as
a good friend, Alvis 3.1, or whatever he calls himself these days…This is a
story he told me, which of course he will deny. But that’s why we tell these
things, isn’t it?
Alvis started his model building career as a rivet-counter
wannabe. But he felt that he lacked the talent/ability to accomplish this goal
on a par with the work of other modellers whose work he had seen. (A curious
observation on his part, given his current high level of talent/ability, but
we’re all our own worst critics).
While suffering under this self-delusion, he attended a model
contest in a major city, and saw a model that changed his mind. It was a small
simple decorated base, depicting a golf green, with the cup and flag.
Surrounding it were the golf bag and several golf clubs broken and twisted into
unreconizable shapes. The ball lay right on the lip of the cup. The title of the
piece was “Cow Pasture Pool”. From this model, Alvis learned that it was
okay to have fun with modelbuilding, because not only did it allow for a freedom
of expression, it irritated rivet counters.
Fast forward some 20 years, and Alvis and I wound up living
in the same town. We met through the local model club and at one point he came
to my house to see my collection. He looked in one of my showcases, and
exclaimed, “You’re the guy!”. Yes, I’m the guy, and lo these many years
later, I still have the little joke that I was able to enter in “Scratch-built
Miscellaneous” and even win a ribbon! Here it is. Seeing as how I’m older
that Alvis, perhaps I’ll will it to him…
The second picture
is the one I entered the year before, entitled “Jaws”. It also won a ribbon,
to the chargrin of rivet-counters, who never thought to enter anything in
“Scratchbuilt Miscellaneous”. It is to laugh and say ha-ha.
...There are those
that would accuse me of unleashing the madness that is Alvis 3.1. I disagree.
The madness was already there, full-blown. All I did was let him know he's not
the only one...
Charlie Crawford
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