John1955

A truck I know well, my father was a long haul trucker, his company was small and modest and used Mack B's. You couldn't pick a better subject matter to do a big rig, they used to be everywhere. As a boy, I remember climbing up into my father's truck and in summers, his employer allowed drivers to take their kids along (amazing the insurance company permitted it). On long trips, I slept in the sleeper and recall hearing him crunch through the gears while listening to country music on the AM radio and smelling his pipe. And of course I loved the great food at truck stops. I look forward to seeing your progress on your project.

Additional leafs?

This was an easy one to answer. Just use a Testors black paint pen on the interior side of the windows. Even with severe arthritis in my hands, it's quick to do. If you need to, use scotch tape on the surface before using the paint pen to keep lines straight. No rocket science or special tools needed.

When you were a school kid, was there a model club there? At my grade school, they had one and meetings were held in the basement of the old building. For some reason, I didn't join it until I was in third grade, I can't remember if that was because it didn't exist until then or if I simply didn't know about it. In any case, it was a strange area to have plastic kits since the boiler room was down there as well. The kits were kept on a wall as far as possible from that noisy beast though, the school had steam heat and had those big radiators in the classrooms. (Since there was no cafeteria, we brought lunches our moms packed and warmed up stuff on the radiators). The teacher who chaired the model club did so in his own time most of the time and also spent his own money on glue and paint for us. The principal was in the club as well and bought supplies sometimes. When I was in fourth grade, a girl asked to join and was accepted (my little sister). We were lectured on the safe use of model glue and paint, how to brush and spray paint and Mr. Slebodniksy used to yell "PATIENCE, PATIENCE, TAKE YOUR TIME, ROME WASN'T BUILT IN A DAY!" It irritated him when we made glue bombs, LOL. By the time she was in the fourth grade, my little sister was building better models than most of the boys were. By then, I was in another school, junior high (7th grade), and there was a model club there, too, I joined it but quit shortly afterward because I seemed to be the only one there into strictly stock builds plus it interfered with my participation on the school's sports teams. By high school (grades 10-12), no model club existed in any school in our entire district. I kind of stayed in sports a bit (a team mate was Joe Montana), then lost interest because I had an after school job and between that, school and building models at home, who had time for sports?

Two things to smile about!

Totally correct, they were in vaudeville first in 1922, Samuel Horwitz (Shemp) was a stooge before younger brother Jerome (Curly) was. Curly's "woo woo woo"'s were because he couldn't always remember his lines, Moses (Moe) liked it though and they stayed in the final cut. I have several old movies in my collection with Shemp in them, he plays a Muslim merchant who is a fake, not Muslim at all and is arrested. He's hysterically funny in that part. He also played in several westerns in dramatic roles, but when Moe asked him to come back after Curly's stroke, he returned immediately. Curly did want to return, and did once on one episode, but not as one of the three stooges. He simply wasn't well enough, sadly he never recovered from that stroke.

When I was a kid, band aids were always needed when my brothers and I were using hobby knifes while building models. I recall one time when I really did a number on my finger and was bleeding and my older brother yelled at me, " Be careful, don't get any blood on that car!" Nice that he was so concerned, LOL.

But we did eat what our father harvested from hunting. He didn't believe in trophies or brag about his skills either. Mom learned (from grandma) how to make delicious venison stew and venison chili. but she never liked venison 'steaks' and wouldn't cook them. She did make decent burgers and meatloaf from groundhog meat though, she soaked it in beef juices and mixed in a little ground beef with it. Mom refused to clean or otherwise process any wild game meat, she made my father do that. Ditto with fish he caught when we went fishing.

I completely agree. I do my best though to avoid 'news sources' with rather obvious political slants. I recall when growing up that my area had four channels that had evening news, CBS, NBC, ABC and NET (it became PBS later but was no longer non-biased). For the most part, none of the anchors ever gave any opinions, they just reported on what was happening and you couldn't tell from looking at their faces what they thought about it. The network and local news anchors didn't have fancy haircuts or hairstyles either. They didn't attempt to entertain you or even smile at you. The only time I remember seeing an anchor on TV seem to be unable to control himself was after JFK was assassinated. I saw that happen on all three major networks and since I was a little kid then, it scared me. Walter Cronkite took off his glasses and wiped his eyes, Howard K. Smith let out a big sigh and John Chancellor kept stuttering as he read the news and looked lost. That was totally unlike those guys.

Frankly, Snopes is a discredited source of 'facts' according to many. They do seem to have an obvious political bias and agenda.

I remember once in a social media group when the discussion was about dairy products. One person actually said (and I quote): "How dare humans steal the milk from a momma cow? That milk is for her babies!" I stared at the screen in disbelief, how many calves did she think a cow has per year? Since I worked on farms when I was a kid, I tried to explain to her the reality of the subject. But she had a tantrum and accused me of being ignorant. Sarcastically, I asked her if it was okay to eat eggs or was I killing baby chickens and she told me that I was a cannibal, that all eggs should be allowed to hatch and that chicks have a right to live. So I told her that I had to go make a sandwich made with tomatoes and onions that I had murdered and that I'd put murdered cow meat (hamburger) on it as well. She called me names and I left.

I recently found some ancient pinstriping rolls that I'd bought from AW in circa 1978, there are black rolls, white ones and one is silver. Widths are .125", .062" and .030. I assumed they would no longer be any good and almost threw them away. But to my surprise (and delight), when I tried applying some to models already built that I was restoring, the adhesive was strong and still good. I guess you never know until you try.

To each his own is my motto for building model kits. 99.9% of models I've built in the last 60 years have been stock but often with custom wheels, tires and colors. They do always appear drivable if they were 1:1. I NEVER put conestoga wagon wheels and low profile tires on classics, to me, that's extremely ugly but as I said, to each his own. At least if you do that to a model, you haven't ruined a real 1:1 classic car or truck. But build what turns you on, that's what it's all about. Different strokes for different folks. Variety is the spice of life, etcetera.

Very true comments, Peter, well said. I'll add that we don't want to see the kitchens of our favorite restaurants either. And I don't mean fast food joints, I mean your favorite family owned ones. In fact, as a general rule, fast food is usually safer than meals at smaller establishments is, less chance of Salmonella and E. coli. Thinking back to my childhood, I'm not sure I want or need to know exactly how my mom made her delicious homemade gravies but I do know that she saved fat/grease etc and that she fried eggs in bacon grease. They were fantastic! None of us kids ever died from her cooking or became overweight. I pay little attention to the health police anyway, I can recall when we were warned that ALL dairy products were harmful, then they changed their minds, then they changed their minds again. Years ago, the health police warned us that turkey was BAD, now they've changed their minds. Wheat is bad, beef and pork is BAD, sugar is BAD, sodium is BAD, on and on ad nauseum, blah blah blah. Coffee is harmful, no it isn't, yes it is. Caffeine will kill you, no it won't, yes it will. I suggest that a lot of people in this world need to find better ways to spend their time than going out of their way to find more things to worry about and keep their gloom and doom attitudes to themselves.

One more new kit builder added to the world! My great-nephew is 4 years old and I bought him this easy kit for $12.99 at Michael's. He was so excited when he finished it within minutes, but wanted more of a challenge. I thought to myself, "Good he's hooked". I gave him my Sharpie silver paint pen after showing him how to use it, even guiding his little hand at first. He added a silver outline on the wheels. I had water slide decals from a 2010 Mustang kit I'd made a few years ago that I hadn't used (wide black stripes). I showed him how to apply decals using other decals I had no use for. Then he put the stripes on his Mustang and did a decent job and smiled. I have a huge stash of kits here that I never found the time to build, especially after I got arthritis when I slowed down. I sorted through my stash and gave him some snap together ones including Camaros, Corvettes, Mustangs and Challengers. "Take your time, take your time" I told him. Next step: I'll teach him how to carefully brush paint details in interiors and wait awhile before trying any spray painting lessons on bodies and about using glue. Let him enjoy and practice a lot first. His mom told me he doesn't even want to use her computer lately because he's building kits. She loves that and so do I. I salute Revell for a great idea and I salute Michael's for having such a large selection of snap kits in stock there at very low prices. When he's done building the ones I gave him, his mom said she'll absolutely buy him some more there, especially the trucks. My sister (his grandmother) said, "Well, now I know what to buy him for his birthday and where to buy them".

And vaccines contain mind control chips that turn people into zombies. And cows passing gas will destroy the world. And ...

Actual hot dogs are supposed to made of pork, NOT beef. The origin is traced back to the 13th century, to Wurstchen. They were pork sausages similar in size to modern hot dogs and called Frankfurters. Beef hot dogs are tasty but are not real hot dogs as they were originally intended and few people can afford to buy 100% beef 'hot dogs' anyway. My great grandmother was of German ancestry and scoffed at 'hot dogs' that were not pork. Fortunately I knew her until her death when I was 11 years old. She would be disgusted to see today's so called hot dogs with beef, turkey and chicken meat. And those German hot dogs made with pork always contained not the best parts of the animal, it was tradition.

I haven't noticed any difference at all over the years in Westley's, and I use it not only for cleaning resin and plastic, but for cleaning the white letter tires on my pickup trucks so I will continue to use it.

I work with lots of resin parts and resin kits and I've found that Westley's is great for cleaning resin and that despite instructions from some resin makers, soaking resin in it isn't really needed. I use a small scrub brush to wash the resin parts, then rinse thoroughly and allow to air dry. yh70 is right about Easy Off to strip paint, Westley's won't strip paint off. But I have found that after cleaning with Westley's, even though it didn't strip the paint off, I can repaint over the existing paint with no problems. I also use Westley's to clean polystyrene plastic as well, it removes mold release agents used in manufacturing.

I so much enjoyed reading about Curious as I love cats! My neighborhood has many semi-feral cats, a local group captures them, has them spayed or neutered, then releases them back into the neighborhood. A local veterinarian performs this service at no cost. No one on my street has seen a mouse or rat in years, as I type this, three cats are sitting on my front porch. Like several others in this neighborhood, I buy cat food and feed them. I once had house cats, and you are right, cats do love people. When a dog or cat is loved, they return that love ten fold. A few times, when I let Pip outside to do her business, she will share the feed containers with the cats. They don't hiss at her and she doesn't growl at them.

Such things also make me smile as well. Although I grew up in a rural setting, I now live in a city, two blocks from downtown. But I am delighted to see that this small city has so many wild animals roaming around in it, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, possums and raccoons are often in my yard. The county courthouse is about two and a half blocks from me, and it's now common to see eagles flying to and from it.

LOL, yes, that is Shemp from the "Brideless Groom" episode, I love the Three Stooges. It's truly amazing that the first episodes were made back in 1934 and that every generation since then continues to enjoy them.

Aw, Bianca sounds like a very good dog! About printed newspapers, I can't make any sense out of what you said, sorry. $700 a year? OMG, I've never heard of such a price for a newspaper! My local hometown paper costs me $132 a year and it's well worth it. I'd been doing the internet 'news' thing for years and got tired of the slanted fake news there and all the ads, so I went back to the local printed paper. At least in a printed paper, one can ignore ads easily, but mine contains valuable coupons and alerts me to sales at local stores. The local news is in my paper the same day it happens, ditto for national and world news. Your local paper must have been lousy, you were wise to cancel it. I prefer to relax and rest my eyes while reading the news and comics, not staring at a bright screen.

Do you remember your first daily driver? The first car you drove? I sure do, I was a little hot rodder (according to my mother) in my pedal car when I was a wee one. I vaguely remember being yelled at for going too near the main road once. My legs were small then but powerful, no battery power like the ones today, it was all kid powered. I think brand new pedal cars must have been expensive back then or something because mine was old and rusty, but I didn't mind. As for real 1:1 cars, when I was 15 years old and working after school and weekends at a Gulf station, I bought a '65 Chevy Impala for $75.00. It was worn out, high mileage, burned oil, but it was mine so I loved it. It took me about six months to get it fixed up for the road and by that time I was 16 and old enough to get my driver's license.