Que pasa cuando un modelista fallece?

Siendo un ex-cliente de Meteor Productions y que aún mantengo el contacto con su dueno, Dave Klaus, nos envio esto acerca de un modelista que fallecio.

Tal como el lo describe, algunas veces dejamos de llamar o relacionarnos entre nosotros los modelistas, el cual es un grupo BIEN PEQUEÑO, y el cual tal como el lo indica la media de la edad de los modelistas anda arriba de los 50!! posiblemente en nuestro pais esa media este un poco más abajo pero no por mucho quiza este entre 40, ahora alrededor del mundoe yo creo que la media esta por encima de los 40, o sea que somos un grupo que si no se renueva tiende a desaparecer.

Sin más les dejo su artículo y lo que algunso modelistas respondieron
http://www.fineartofdecals.com/goodies/daves-rant-about-our-fellow-modelers/


Dave’s Rant About Our Fellow Modelers
(UPDATE NOTE: Holy smoke. This rant has generated a HUGE response.)

My Rant

Am I Guilty?

You know, modelers as a group are getting to be pretty old dudes, and none of us are getting any younger. The average age in our hobby is above 50, and there are fewer and fewer of us. Why in the hell don’t we take better care of each other?

A couple of days ago a fellow modeler died after fighting cancer for about a year.

You didn’t know him. His name was Edward J. Bolling, a former Marine and current Fairfax County Police Department officer in Virginia. Ed was an extremely avid 1/72 modeler and all-around nice guy, although he was a very private man. Ed loved his wife and very young son, and was only 42 when he passed, younger even than the average person in our hobby.

I first met Ed back in 1998 when he came into Meteor soon after I opened my first storefront. He was the beat cop for our area, and being the exceptionally conscientious man he was, he got his butt out of his squad car and physically checked to ensure the doors to the businesses under his watch were actually locked.

Ed had checked our doors the night before and noticed our tiny Meteor Productions logo on the door. As a modeler, he recognized our name and visited the next afternoon to introduce himself. Thereafter he visited us 2-3 times a week during his lunch hour.

A few years later Ed was transferred to a different police division and could no longer come by . . . we only saw him a few times a year after that. Luckily for him, there was, and is, a superb hobby shop called Piper Hobby in his new patrol area and he became a regular there.

So I kind of lost track of Ed. I heard he got married, then that he had a son. He came by Meteor a few weeks after he was returned to duty after having been forced to shoot a bad guy in the line of duty. It really bothered Ed, but the bad guy was trying to stab him to death.

Then, last Friday, a mutual friend sent a group email telling us Ed had passed. First I was shocked.

Then, I was pissed.

How the hell did I let so much distance accumulate between a really good guy that I liked a lot and me? How did I fail to know he had cancer? I don’t know what I could have done to help him, but I sure as hell could have been there if he needed me. We weren’t necessarily the closest of friends, but he was a good guy that I liked and respected.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not angry none of his other friends mentioned this to me–if they even knew about it. Not specifically their responsibility.

I went to his wake (visitation) late in the six-hour long observance. No other modelers there (surely some went earlier or later than me), but there were at least 50 police officers present. When a cop falls, even due to illness, his brothers rally.

This issue bears some serious consideration. We’re all getting older, and some of us are fucking OLD. As modelers, it’s a definite fact that nobody in the world except another modeler has any clue how we’re wired—and it doesn’t matter most of the rest of the world just thinks we’re weird. I think we really need to take better care of each other.

Many of us have families to lean on, but some don’t. I can’t imagine a worse fate than to get sick and maybe even die alone. Some people want to keep sickness private, which is their prerogative. But even a person who wants to curl up and die and who rejects sympathy might well appreciate simple friendship during a time of need.

You’ll do what you want, and what you think is right. For myself, I’m paying a lot closer attention to my modeling friends—including the ones I’ve lost contact with—and working to rekindle dormant friendships.

If one of our brethren has problems, I’m going to make sure his other modeling friends know, as long as it’s consistent with his wishes. I’ve learned my lesson. I feel a responsiblity to help fellow modelers help mutual friends who are in trouble–and help before the trouble become terminal.

IMO, hanging together sure beats hanging separately.

So, am I guilty? Yes, but dear Lord, I’m tryin’.

Are you?

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Selected Responses

Whew.

This rant generated BY FAR the most commentary of anything I’ve ever written for the modeling community, and that includes all the stuff I did back at Meteor. It also resulted in the largest number of “spam reports” and unsubscribes I’ve ever experienced. Go figure!

You guys (and one gal!) sent hundreds and hundreds of emails, many including a personal story or two.

Except for one guy. He wrote quite firmly that if anything ever happened to him, if he got sick or whatever, it would be private and nobody else’s damned business. He is exactly correct: it’s his personal business just as it is for each of us in similar circumstances. Yes, without doubt there are some serious assholes in the modeling hobby, but that’s true of life in general. I tried to make this clear in my rant, but not sure he really understood that we’re on the same wavelength.

I did not and do not wish to imply or urge anyone to pry into other’s private affairs when not wanted, but I hope and pray that guys think highly enough of their friends to accept their friendship in times of need as well as the better times.

Below are three of the responses to my rant, published with permission of the writers. I think each of them has something useful to teach us, and I hope you do too.

Dave

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From Michael Mettman:

Hi Dave,

I can completely understand how you feel. Three years ago I had a serious car wreck. I’m pretty well busted up from it now and have been told I will never work again or be able to do things I enjoyed before.

I have a family that stands by me and loves me, but its difficult. I try to build when I can and get discouraged a lot! People in general are, well lets just say cruel. Yeah I’ve heard "I’ll call you", "Let’s get together" and such.

I suffer with pain daily and headaches that would probably make most people scream. I see specialists that work with me and I get on average 18-22 injections without freezing while I am awake from the base of my skull to my mid back to help tolerate some of the pain for a short period of time.

So the internet is my "friend". I like to read what’s new out there and see what others are working on. Get damn jealous – not – when I see some nice kits built up that I have in my own stash that someone has turned into masterpieces. And, always laugh at the rivet counters and the expertise they have on any given subject. You know the ones I’m sure. I always enjoyed your products, and miss them not being available anymore.

I’m really glad you posted this today. It’s made my day a little brighter.

Thanks Dave!

Kindest Regards,

Michael Mettman

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From Kevin Fox:

Well said! Your email brought a couple of thoughts to mind.

I live in a small town in rural Illinois. When I was a kid, I rode my bicycle all over town from the moment I woke up until suppertime every day. One of my favorite places to ride to was a hardware (and furniture) store on the square. I’d go in and bullshit with the owner or the salesclerks, marveling over the latest shipment of Estwing hammers or admiring the woodworking tools for hours on end.

One afternoon when I was fifteen, I went in and asked the owner, Eugene, for a job—washing windows, mopping floors, stocking shelves, or whatever he needed me to do. That evening he called my dad and told him that I had come in to his store seeking employment and that he would like to hire me to work after school and on Saturdays. (This was in the good old days when the bastard box stores didn’t exist, so nobody in our small town was open on Sundays, or very late in the evenings.)

At any rate, my father replied that he thought it was a fine idea and that he should “feel free to work my ass off”, which of course Mr. Cox did many, many times. I worked for him throughout high school and during the summers while I was in college. I can’t tell you how much I learned working for him.

In those days, people expected you to know something about the merchandise you sold, and if they wanted an item we didn’t stock, I had to find a place we could order it for them. I worked harder in that job than I ever have since, and much of what I learned from him had nothing at all to do with tools or coffee percolators, but guided me through my later life and career.

After my sophomore year in college, I had to quit working there to concentrate on my studies. The hardware store soon had new competitors in town—some national chain stores and eventually the dreaded Walmart, and it closed a few years later. Mr. Cox and his wife retired to warmer climates and we lost touch.

I often told stories about some of the funny things that happened while I worked at the hardware store, and some of the really, stupid, stupid things I did that should have gotten me fired. I wondered if Gene was still alive, and whenever I would run into another former co-worker, we always asked each other if he knew anything about his health, etc.

Last year, he passed away in Louisiana and his children brought him back here to be buried. I didn’t know about it until several weeks later. I can’t tell you how sad that makes me. He was a great guy and I missed the chance to tell his kids how much their father meant to me.

The other thing your rant made me think of is this:

My wife and I bought the house my paternal grandparents built in 1955. We remodeled it and have lived here since 1995. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents when I was growing up, and got to know their neighbors quite well.

One of them is a retired gentleman who lives in the house that faces my back yard, and since moving in he and I have gotten to be good friends. I have known Ray for more than 30 years, and have spent more spare time than I care to tell shooting the bull as we both rest a moment and let our riding mowers cool off. We’ve talked about everything under the sun—families, neighbors, kids, etc.

Two years ago we had a terrible windstorm that devastated this whole part of Illinois. It was described as a wall of tornadoes or a land hurricane, but what ever you call it, we had no power or landline telephones or cable TV, and a huge number of trees were literally blown over.

I lost more than twenty trees in my yard , including several 100 year old oaks that barely missed my house as they fell. Everyone in this area spent countless hours cutting down or cutting up damaged or down trees and limbs. One evening after a full day of running my chain saw, I shut it down and waved Ray over to have some lemonade.

We sat on my deck talking for a while, wondering when the power was going to be restored. I mentioned that I was reading Stephen Ambrose’s book “The Wild Blue” and asked if he had served in WW II. He began telling me that he had served in the Air Force in the war, flying out of England in a B-24. He went on to tell me that he and his crew had bombed targets in Germany and that he had been part of the 458th bomber group.

I was stunned, to say the least. I’ve known this guy almost all my life and didn’t know any of this about him. He is a quiet soft-spoken man that I had never even imagined the things he had done and seen. He was (and is) very reticent to speak of his wartime experiences, but he has opened up some.

I searched the internet and found pictures of the plane he flew in and also a picture of him and the others in his crew posing by their plane. He was moved to tears seeing them, and I hold him in even higher regard because I realize that he is part of a generation of men that is almost gone now. He is a better man than I ever knew.

I’m not sure if either of these will be of any interest to you, but I think they connect with your story in that we often cross paths with people without knowing much about them, or giving them much thought. We hustle about our lives, sometimes missing the chance to tell someone that you appreciate them for their sacrifice, or for the lessons they can teach or have taught us. It is perhaps ironic that in the cell phone and social networking age that we do very little real communicating. I am sorry for the loss of your friend.

Kevin Fox