The Day After

Or in this case, the Monday after, as I was too gassed yesterday, and I am at work today, sohere’s this wiz-bang laptop and I have a hot cup of coffee, and I have time to reorganize my thoughts.It seemed to me that we had an outstanding show. We had models out the wazoo, walk-up traffic even outer the wazoo, and over 90 tables of goodies for sale.

I thought the Best of Show, a totally reworked Fletcher-class destroyer in enormous 1/144 scale was exceptional. If I had to get thumped, getting thumped by the Best of Show took some of the sting out. He deserved it. The guy totally re-worked that Revell beastie from stem to stern.

I think the show was well-run, with enough judges who would work for food. Everyone I worked with was thoughtful, verbose, respectful, and only two or three times did the phrase“piece of cr*p” get spoken out loud. Most of what we looked at were definitely not in the “piece of cr*p” category. I only forgot to turn in one judging sheet, thus helping Tom Moon avoid a coronary. Tom did an outstanding job, as Boyd Waechter says in his show report, ofmoving things right along in the awards ceremony. Bing-bang-done. Here’s your trophy. We do need to speak, however, about him learning the proper pronunciation of German, Japanese, and Russian words. Just sayin’. Overall, an outstanding job.

The selfless Paul Sacco, in his final go-round (he swears) as registration coordinator and running the books, did another outstanding job of keeping the planes from co-mingling with the cars, tanks from getting lost in the sci-fi, and keeping paperwork in a generally neat, tidy, and shipshape way. His successor has large deck shoes to fill.Doc Alexander, “fresh” off a 15-hour KLM flight from Russia, managed to stay awake. No small feat. He sacrificed sleep, rest, and 8 a.m. Dukes of Hazzard reruns to head the Aircraftjudging. As usual, judging air took the longest, but Doc managed to remain vertical, mobile,and semi-aware of his surroundings.

Boyd Waechter’s winning Nakajima A6M2-N Rufe.

Richard Kern kept the armor judges moving right along in auszgezeichnet ordnung (excellent order)…and managed to build six more airplanes while riding herd on his judges. By the way, for his support and participation in River Con each year, the Shreveport chapterhas made Richard an honorary member of their chapter.

Richard about to get a Red River’s Modelers polo shirt and thanks for helping support their club each year.

I did not get to look much at the cars, but heard no complaints, which means Mike Stucker flogged his guys along, and “got ‘er done”. I am still amazed at that paint job on that ’61 Impala though…

Overall, I heard NO complaints about the judging. I heard precisely NOTHING said about it. That means, it went well. Here’s to all the Head Judges. Well done.

A BIG Sierra Hotel Well Done to the table set-up guys… Vince, and all the rest. I’m too darned old to remember all of their names. For once, we had a bunch, and they worked their keesters off. My 56-year-old knees thank you. The check-in guys got everyone in in a timely manner….and at nearly 500 entries, that’s no small job. Jeff Schmidt did a great job taking away people’s money at the registration table. He also charmed a heck of a lot of fifty-plus women. Smooth…….

Lee Backsen got his Vendor room in good shape, and a lot of Houston guys stepped in to help the vendors move in swiftly. A deal or two might have been made on the loading dock.It’s the best place to scout out what might be there in the vendor room for your greedy littlepaws to grab before some &%$# beats you to it.

Hey, the rain stayed away, the modelers came, the public REALLY came, and a good time was pretty much had by all.

So, on to Grapevine in June for Scalefest! Their theme is the 70th anniversary of the US Air Force…

“Off we go, into the wild blue yonder…”

Rick Cotton

Hasegawa 1/72nd RB-47 Stratojet by Jerry Greer from Tulsa, OK.

Trumpeter 1/32nd Stormvick – 1st Place in 1/32nd Aircraft category.