Chapter 18 (first draft)
Dad's Model Building
Racing faded into the background. Jan did not come home for Christmas. Dad said he agreed with Uncle Bob that staying in Rockford for the holidays would be better for her. What went unsaid, we later learned, was that if Jan had come back to Evansville or Mt. Carmel, she likely would not have been invited back to Rockford. My sister was closer to fifteen than fourteen, and in the throes of her first blush of sexual energy manipulation. I was eleven and oblivious to much of the adult world.
Dad still tried to sell karts. Activity at the shop was slow, but he had a lot of components to utilize. As January rolled around, we rarely went to the shop on the weekends. He was on the phone a lot. We also started a train layout in the other back bedroom.
The apartment on N. Main was made for a bachelor. The bedroom took up the full end of the floor plan, with a wall-sized picture window facing the courtyard, but no closet or bathroom. The living room filled the middle half of the unit. From there to the back, the apartment was divided into two sections. On the right was a hallway that separated the bathroom from a long closet. It ended in a small bedroom that Dad used as his den. The kitchen, another closet, and a second small bedroom filled out the other half of that area of the apartment. This last bedroom was full of stuff. Dad proposed we clear it out and build a train layout. Wall space was at a premium. The small room had three doorways: from the kitchen, to the den, and an outside door to the long, covered porch. Only the back wall was free of interruptions, but the outside door opened toward it.
I was up for about anything, which was mostly watching Dad build the four by six foot table. He covered it with white 1/2" Celotex. With the table done, he said, "Let's take a break." Fine with me. "Get us some drinks, would you? Bring them to the den."
I poured him a glass of tea from the fridge that I had made the night before. Kim had shown me how Dad liked it earlier that year. Was not rocket science. If sugar were combustible, though, it could have been rocket fuel. After boiling five Lipton tea bags in our largest pot, I was supposed to let it cool, then pour into a half gallon pitcher and add a half cup of sugar. Sometimes a little more. Sometimes, the sweetened tea went into the fridge before it cooled off. Dad never complained about the tea being too sweet, as long as it was cold or on ice.
I hustled a large glass of tea and my root beer into the den. Dad had set out two cork coasters on the small table by the large, dark red chair. A stack of Model Railroader magazines filled most of the table. Dad thanked me and took a drink of his tea. "Please" and "thank you" were a part of our family's culture. When Jan was in one of her moods, she often refused to be courteous, resulting in more than one blowout.
"Look here, Son," Dad said, showing me one of the magazines. The cover follows:
"You have a bunch of these, don't you?"
"Back to the late forties. This one's four years old."
"Cool," I said. "Anything special about it?"
"Look on page 34. Carefully."
I flipped through the magazine and found page 34. "Trackside photos," I read. "These buildings look pretty real. Hey, that's your name! Did you make these models?"
"I did."
"How big are they?"
"They're TT scale, which is 1:120. That means something that is ten feet long..."
"120 inches..."
Dad nodded. "...in real life, how long will it be in TT scale?"
"That's easy. An inch. Where are these little buildings?"
"Come here." We moved along the built-in cabinets, which reached my armpits. Dad opened the top drawer. Gently, he picked up a box with no top. Nestled in tissue were the small barn, water tower, and another even smaller structure.
The image below is from page 34:
PHOTO CAPTION: "Another first attempt appears in the two photos below–in TT gauge. The water tank and barn are the work of Bill Cowling, 722 Mulberry St., Mt. Carmel, Ill. The tank was built with stripwood and scribed sheetwood and the barn from stripwood planks."
Very gently, Dad lifted out the barn. "They're delicate, so maybe just look, okay?"
"Sure, Dad." Last thing I wanted was to damage these little buildings. We glanced at each other at the same time. His eyes sparkled. His voice filled with excitement. "I rebuilt part of this barn three times."
"How come?"
He turned the little barn we could see inside the loft. "See the hay?" I nodded, holding my breath. "It's Kim's hair."
"Did she mind?"
"Of course not. It's such a small amount/"
"Oh. So, how did you make this?"
"One beam, one board at a time. Most modelers use specialty sheets to make walls. They come in different textures. I've never liked them. Want my models to look like the real thing in a photo. I made the frame from scale size beams, but had to sand down the stick balsa wood to realistic dimensions. Took a couple tries to get it right."
"They didn't make the size you needed?"
"That would be nice, Son, but probably not cost effective for the companies that sell them. There is more than one scale. TT is not the most popular. And the wood is very soft, so it sands easily."
"You built the frame, then what?"
"I planked the sides with strips. They were the right width, but too thick. I shaved them with my X-Acto knife until they curled. Then I stained the curls to give them a weathered and uneven look. Then I cut them into the right lengths and glued them carefully onto the frame one by one."
"How long did it take you?"
"Hundreds of hours. I was keeping track for a while. Look closely here," Dad said, pointing to one of the ends. See those little dots?"
"Yeah. What are they?"
"Some are black, some rusty looking, right?" I nodded again. We both had our glasses off, looking at the little barn from close up. I could smell Dad's smoker's breath. "They are the nail heads that hold on the siding boards."
"You used real nails that small?"
"I wish. Those are tiny points of paint, different colors, some slightly different shapes, like real nail heads in an old barn would look."
"Wow, Dad. This is so cool." The little barn looked real sitting there on the chests. But I didn't know an actual barn from a fake one. And I could not imagine spending so much time making a small building. I did see how important they were to Dad, though, and vowed never to touch them. "How did you make the roof?"
"I used sheet balsa that was shaped like roof material. I thought about planking it like the walls. Two different sizes would give the same effect, but the roof rafters ran the same way the roofing panels do, so I took the easy way out."
"Still looks good, Dad."
"Thanks.
"What's that little building next to the water tower?"
Dad took it out of the box gingerly. "It's a corn crib."
"Corn...?"
"Where farmers store their corn for the winter."
"Oh. Where did you get the tiny ears of corn?"
Dad laughed. "I spent some time at the 4-H center. Looked at a bunch of seeds. Finally settled on fennel seeds. They looked the most like unshucked corn. But they were the wrong color. I experimented with how to color them. Soaking them in diluted ink worked the best."
"Really cool, Dad.
"Not quite. I realized I had miscalculated their size. Fennel seeds worked out to be 36" long ears of corn."
"Kinda big, yeah?"
"Exactamundo."
I laughed. That was my word. It sounded funny, Dad using it. "Exactamundo" was like "Zoider," words I used at random. Fifteen years later, Fonzie on Happy Days had everybody saying "Exactamundo." "So what did you do?"
Dad picked up the tiny corn crib, pointed to the inside, which was hard to see, and said, "I went back to the 4-H Center and found these."
"What are those?"
"Don't remember. Not sure I knew for very long. Spotted a small bin of them. Close to the right size and color. Decided they would do. Took them home and threw out the fennel seeds."
"They look pretty cool."
"Thanks, Son. Do you want to build some buildings for our layout?"
"Uh...not sure. How about I drive the trains?"
The train layout did not thrive. Perhaps because I wasn't into it. I was into basketball, though. Played a lot of "driveway" ball in Mt. Carmel. Made use of an old goal still standing near the shuttered Lincoln School across from Grandmother's house. Then Aunt Ruthie moved into the closed nursing home at the end of our block. Uncle Jay or the boys from the store put up a goal in the back next to the auxiliary building that was once a staff dorm. Probably the guys from the basement at the Cowling Company installed it one day. Don't remember ever seeing Uncle Jay doing any manual work.
I pounded those two courts a lot. Played by myself or with school friends. As spring sprang in April, I arrived in Evansville with Dad for my birthday weekend. Walked down the walkway beside the Electrolux Building, turned the corner, and there stood a basketball goal. "Wow, Dad. Where did that come from?"
"Happy Twelfth Birthday, Rapid Robert. I set this up for you during the week." I looked closer at it. Dad had sunk a six by six inch post into the brick courtyard. The post leaned forward at an angle. A shaped backboard was mounted to the post.
"Wow, Dad. This is great!"
Dad opened the apartment door and let me step into the living room ahead of him. Sitting on the bent wood chair in the middle of the white background paper was a brand new basketball with a bow on top. Dad hit the switch by the door. Two floodlights came on, bathing the basketball. "Thanks, Dad. I hadn't thought about where I'd get a ball yet."
He laughed. "How about you sit in the chair holding the ball?" I put down my small suitcase, shucked off my jacket, and did exactly as he asked. Dad clicked off a few shots with his Rolleicord, which was already set up on its tripod. He did not need to tell me to smile.
We had been going to Evansville College Purple Aces basketball games at Roberts Stadium since they went to the small college final four in the 1957-58 season. Dad bought four season tickets. Eddie Smallwood powered the teams that won the nationals in 1959 and 1960. We both yelled our heads off watching Buster Briley shoot shots that would be logo three pointers today, making many of those two point buckets. He often caught opponents off guard, pulling up to shoot a few steps past the center line, before the defense could set up.
I got my first red sports coat just before the 1960 season. The Purple Aces wore orange uniforms, but fans wore red to support the team. Go figure.
I played an endless amount of solo basketball in the brick courtyard, making up rules for two team games. A made basket meant the next shot was for the other team. An airball was an offensive foul. If a rebound hit the ground, it was a foul on the defending team. Fouls were always two shots. The second foul shot played like a regular shot. Out of bounds gave the ball to the other team. OB lines were nonexistent. These calls were subjective, especially in close games.
I played whole seasons of Indiana Collegiate Conference basketball, game by game. At the end of each game, I would go inside for a cold drink and to record the results. Evansville won even more often in my fantasy league than they did in real life. Butler and Valparaiso were its toughest competitors. Looking back on that time, I am amazed neither of the other tenants complained about the noise I made in the courtyard of that compact, three unit complex.
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