Anyone else long for the carefree youth days this time of year?
Right now I am thinking back to when I was about 14 - when I would read over the latest Model Railroader issue while off from school (December and January issues were always my favorite). I’d have time to drool in a hobby shop, look at Christmas train displays in local shopping centers, and enjoy whatever new trains I got. I wasn’t particular about what kind of trains they were, didn’t notice if the details on something were wrong or that a paint scheme was incorrect. I was too young to experience the other holiday stresses. Life was much simpler, and at that age model trains were just pure joy and a perfect creative escape.
Usually a train show would come through town about this time. I’d go with my brother, and we’d spend a few hours just walking up and down the aisles deciding what to spend our meager allowance/birthday/chore money on. I remember one year winning a door prize for a Bachmann 0-6-0. I tried to detail it a little better by painting the smokebox silver and the cab interior green. Little did I know that those things barely ran because of cracked gears, pancake motors, and drivers out of quarter. I’ve still got that locomotive - or at least parts of it. The tender has been narrowed to go behind the re-purposed boiler as an HOn3 2-8-2.
For my 14th birthday my neighbor (El Paso SP Yard Super) arranged for me to ride in the Cab of AC-12 4287 from El Paso to Alamogordo New Mexico. After several hours in the Alamogordo Station I road back to El Paso in AC-9 3807. The absolute best railroad experience I’ve ever had.
Going north in the Cab Forward in mid July it was over 100°, they had the air conditioning on full, all windows open at 35 to 40MPH. The New Mexico desert was in full bloom as were the flies, flies don’t taste very good.
That was in 1951 and nothing has topped that experience.
Between my birthday present and a 1951 Model Railroad Handbook with John Allen’s G & D article I was hooked on modeling the SP in HO scale forever. The 50s were the best of times for me.
I remember reading MR when I was 14 and wishing I had money to buy at least some of the stuff in it. IIRC back then (1972) it was 60 cents an issue, I believe you could get a lifetime subscription for $100. Would have been a good investment!
My parent owned a mens store and two days before Christmas they would take me to my Grandmother’s. We would go to the Baltimore Museum of Art, where I would examine the mummy and take the bus downtown, where there was a department store on every corner (literally) and throngs of people.
I went through all the toy departments and especially liked those cast metal soldiers and calvery. We had lunch with her sister, niece and my second cousins and a a friend or two at one of the department stores. 4 adults and 3 kids, the bill probably was less than $20 for all and they figured who owed what down to the penny. [:D]
After lunch, we went to a movie theater, that was one a vaudville theater. All of the big theaters were back then. Balcony, orchestra pit, chandeliers. I made her see some awful movies like Vincent Price in Pit and the Pendulum.
Every year, right after Halloween we found the Sears Christmas Wishbook in our mailbox. Back in those days they had whole pages dedicated to Lionel and American Flyer trains. I would dream of adding to my meager Lionel set and would receive a couple of new items every year. I enjoyed the complex track plans that three rail ac afforded, could imagine a box being a building. Let us not forget the metal printed buildings and the wonderful Plasticville. Our only limit was our imagination. I ran my trains with the Fort Apache, Alamo, Blue and Grey, Battleground sets, and even scale models when I got older. Still have the Lionel, not great shape because my little brother got hold of them while Uncle Sam had me. The smell of lichen, the ozone from the electric train. the whistle from the tender and the smoke from the stack, all were great wonders to a young lad. Christmas morning, I had to wait as my dad and his friends had their turn on the transformer. This time is way past, my parents are now gone. along with my little brother. The wonders that the wishbook offered are also gone as is the wishbook itself.
Nope. I make more money in one hour now than I did in a whole day at my first job. I can afford way more trains.
Going back even further, I don’t think 12 year old me handled as much cash in a year as a day’s pay now.
I place no special memory on youth. I can do whatever I want, however I want, whenever I want (as long as the lady of the house approves, but I’m not a crazy party animal so she’s pretty content). Things are way more fun now than then! Although the mileage on this bone bag is starting to show.
It’s Christmas time and I have memories more so this time of the year. I always think of my grandfather around this time. He was (Is)[;)] my favorite person in the whole world
I would like to share with you a phrase my grandfather taught me. My Grandfather was a great Scotsman and I respected everything he had to say.
“A confident person secure within is humble and radiates kindness to others around them. An insecure person feels the need to gloat”
I have a fun memory when I was around 14. Two friends and I were hanging out down by the Railroad Trestle like we always did. It was a weekend near Christmas time.
It had just snowed and a guy we had often seen taking smoke breaks at the Chocolate Factory was shoveling the loading dock. We had seen him so many times we figured what the heck and went to talk to him.
After a pleasant conversation he asked us if we liked chocolate. HELLO! … You fill in the blanks… what does a kid say to that?
Anyway, he told us when the cans of chocolate fall on the floor and get dented they cannot ship them to their vendors that way. He told us hold on a minute and went back inside and brought out three 2 gallon dented cans. Chocolate syrup, caramel syrup and strawberry puree.
Needless to say our parents had to buy vanilla ice cream by the gallon for a long time [:D]
One of my fondest memories goes back into the early 1960s, when the family didn´t own a car. At that time, we lived in the “burbs” in the deep industrial west of Germany and a visit to town meant a half hour streetcar ride, which I was always thrilled with! Before Christmas, all the family rode to town, and while Mum took us kids to the movies, Dad did the Christmas shopping, working down the eloboratly ornated wish lists we had sent to Santa. After the movies we went to pick up Dad at the toy store. We were not allowed to go inside, but the store´s windows were wonderfully decorated and we didn´t mind waiting for Dad at all! It was no wonder the staff had to clean the windows from “nose marks” quite a number of times during the day! My favorite window showed a huge Marklin layout, which I admired until my parents dragged me home!
Times have changed, the store is all but a fond memory of times when life was much simpler and people seemed to be happier than nowadays.
When I was a kid the Toronto Eatons and Simpsons stores had fantastic window displays. Everything was animated and of course the most popular toys of the time were prominently featured. My mom and my Aunt Mary used to take me and my older brothers from Oshawa to Toronto by train so we could see the displays. Our eyes were like tea saucers!
I guess I’ve looked back at my childhood so much over the years that I’ve gotten burned out on it. I now prefer to dwell in the present rather than the past…
This time of year is always my favorite to look back on childhood memories. I didn’t have an allowance as a kid, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. There was nowhere to buy trains even remotely close to where I grew up. Christmas was one of the few times I got new train things and it was absolutely magical opening up those presents on Christmas morning. As a bonus, it always included a trip to Grandma & Grandpa’s house (who lived in a much bigger city) and I was always taken to…Toys-R-Us to spend any Christmas money I got on train things there. As far as I knew, Life-Like, Bachmann, and Tyco was all there was to HO scale trains. In those days, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a hobby shop until one fateful year that Grandpa took me to one. Pretty sure my head exploded!
When I was very little, before the invention of shopping malls, I remember during Christmas shopping season one of the big department stores downtown would have an electric train display in one of their window displays. I used to love to check it out. I remember being disappointed that the next display window had something stupid like women’s clothes. I would wonder why all the display windows weren’t full of toy trains.
A one word response…YES! Many wonderful memories of my late father and grandfather working on the Lionel trains to get layout ready for Christmas. They gave me a lifetime hobby for which I am eternally grateful. Merry Christmas to everyone!
Pretty much the same here. My childhood kinda sucked. I’m having a lot more fun now than I did when I was a kid. The only things I really miss from when I was a kid outside of friends and loved ones who’ve passed on are when a lot of the cars I like were brand new and when my favorite railroad conrail was still up and running. Now however I can actually drive those cars and have owned some of them. As for conrail, that’s what model train layouts are for.
I don’t know about the rest of you but I didn’t like my youth much. I was one of the original turn-key kids. Then around 16 I set my life goals and did not set them too low, I thought. Wanted to live in a Victorian mansion with fine furnature, not have to work for a living and have a family, did it all by 29 (no it was not handed to me, up to 20 hr days, up to 7 days a week and most dimes invested and not much of a social life). Thats when I got back into model railroading but soon I had to go back to work because kids are expencive! Don’t know about the rest of you but I worked most holidays including x-mas more than once.