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giddy, warm and fuzzy I have something SOOO special (to ME anyway!) to show you!!!!
take a peek.... warning, it's picture heavy...
It's pretty easy to see where I developed my love for assemblage, automatons and all things of the "gizmo" genre. Dad really loved this sort of thing and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. This is a VERY special bit of "primitive" folk art, created by my father for my little brother and I many years ago. I marvel at it now when I realize how long ago it was and how such toys were still in just the imagination of the mass market. The amount of work and imagination that went into it amazes me more now than it ever did when I was a delighted child. Computers were still in their infancy and so uncommon, that if you take a closer look, you'll see he didn't even know how to spell the word! (and him being such a stickler on our spelling practices too!) LOL!!! That just adds to the quaintness. I also remember him thinking the plastic "label maker" was one of the greatest innovations of our time.... LOL!!! and you can see he sure liked using it!
I'm trying to figure out the year round about when he built it... I was maybe nine or ten years old... perhaps a bit younger. I'm inclined to think it was Christmas of 1966. I'm thinking that Star Trek might have been on TV which is where he would have gotten the inspiration... or was it from "Lost in Space"? I know we still lived in our old house and I was around ten when we moved so it had to be maybe a year earlier. That would make "Lost in Space" or an episode of "Twighligt Zone" as a more probable inspiration.
Thinking of how close I was to losing this piece forever puts a big knot in my gut. It had been long buried in a bunch of "junk" in a storage area and when my mom had to clean everything out she figured that since there were no longer any kids in the family to be amused by it, she put it in the pile of stuff to be discarded. It was only by chance that I discovered and "rescued" it only moments before it would have ended up in the Salvation Army bin. I grabbed it with a leaping heart and brought it home... where I again stashed it out of the way until today. This morning I decided to clean it up and get a look at it's innards. You can't even begin to imagine my amazement when after removing the back panel and checking for dangerous gnawed wires, I plugged it in, turned it on and it still worked!!!! All the lightbulbs even still work!!! I really think dad was looking down and had a hand in THAT!!! Lights shine, there are motors inside that make things spin and twirl adding to the lighting effects and the scanner screen has a rotating drum inside that projects "planets" moving across the screen on the front. Ohhhhh what a wonder it still is, in all it's naivety!!! :-)
I wish he was still here to show me how to wire several motors in a series into things... I would really like to add animation to some projects or just do somethng gizmo-ish like this. I guess I'll have to learn on my own, but I'm sure he'll help in his own way as well as he can from the "other side"!
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November 16 2005, 00:03:32 UTC 6 years ago
Got any immediate intergalactic travel plans? Can I go too?
Anonymous
November 17 2005, 17:12:45 UTC 6 years ago
will you post on ebay?
will you post on ebay?$45
November 16 2005, 00:05:19 UTC 6 years ago
what a good dad. Love it.
lucky yu to have something like this as a connection.
Thanks for sharing it with us.
xox
November 16 2005, 00:42:23 UTC 6 years ago
November 16 2005, 01:12:33 UTC 6 years ago
are ya orbiting pluto yet?!
that is SOOOOOOO cool!!! what a great present that must have been, then and now both!November 16 2005, 01:58:28 UTC 6 years ago
November 16 2005, 17:43:58 UTC 6 years ago
Anonymous
November 17 2005, 00:46:59 UTC 6 years ago
Reminds me of my childhood
I asked my mom if I could make something like this...she didn't know what I was talking about. My dad had died and I had no idea how to begin making this kind of thing: a spaceship panel with buttons that light up, etc... I eventually made one out of cardboard.Cool dad.
Anonymous
November 17 2005, 00:50:53 UTC 6 years ago
Whatever you do...
...please don't submit to the temptation and sell this on eBay. My Dad fixed appliances for a living and sometimes gave me parts to play with; I would be thrilled if I had something like this to remember him by. As you say, the naive nature of it is a big part of what makes it so special. It came directly from his imagination and that, no matter how sentimental it may sound--no money could replace.November 17 2005, 03:31:13 UTC 6 years ago
Re: Whatever you do...
never ever!!! I'm a sentimental old fool :-)Anonymous
November 17 2005, 00:52:24 UTC 6 years ago
wow
yeah, great dad. extremely cool...Anonymous
November 17 2005, 01:15:40 UTC 6 years ago
Priceless!
That is, without a doubt, the most wonderful toy a father could give, and a son could receive, that I have ever seen. That made my day!Anonymous
November 17 2005, 01:28:32 UTC 6 years ago
Thrusters to full, force field to max, activate the computor!
Can I come to your house and play? This is the coolest thing I have seen in quite a long time. Your dad got you over to mom's to make sure this gem didn't end up at the Sally Army. Right on! Prepare for Liftoff!Thaddeus
Anonymous
November 17 2005, 02:08:40 UTC 6 years ago
very very cool
and is it just my imagination or did your dad have a premonition about the apple ipod nav wheel? i can easily see it in the force field control..to infinity and beyond!!!
;-)
Anonymous
November 17 2005, 02:16:57 UTC 6 years ago
ooooo yeah
that wood grain is SEXXXXXXXXXXY. it's the ideal control console for a shag van in space. Ohhhhhhhhhh, yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...Anonymous
November 17 2005, 04:06:32 UTC 6 years ago
coolest dad... ever!
computor actually sounds coolerAnonymous
November 17 2005, 04:38:13 UTC 6 years ago
On a rainy day three years ago my daughter and I built a small battery powered car from a broken CD player, a shoe box and lots of tape. We had a blast building and operating it. She still mentions it fondly from time to time.
My wife had convinced me to throw it away just this week. But not now! It is sitting atop my garbage bins right now for collection this Friday! I am going rescue it and stash it away for my daughter to find years from now.
November 17 2005, 05:00:43 UTC 6 years ago
Anonymous
6 years ago
Anonymous
November 17 2005, 05:10:06 UTC 6 years ago
Gizmo
What a fabulous piece of work this is! So glad you were able to rescue it!Anonymous
November 17 2005, 06:12:44 UTC 6 years ago
Re: Gizmo
This brings tears to my eyes! I hope you have kids of your own and give them the same joy that your parents gave you.November 17 2005, 06:44:08 UTC 6 years ago
November 17 2005, 10:30:28 UTC 6 years ago
Anonymous
November 17 2005, 12:13:42 UTC 6 years ago
Great Toy
My dad made radios when I was young, way back in the mid 50's; he built it into a HUGE (or so it seemed at the time) cabinet with opening doors. Lots of lights and switches and dials, and i strange sounds from the shortwave bands it could receive. For me, this was my spacehip control panel! I now work on flight simulator hardware design.Anonymous
November 17 2005, 15:58:10 UTC 6 years ago
Re: Great Toy
Ah yes, the great noises that used to populate the short wave band - the essential soundtrack for any space adventure from my childhood. My own console consisted of a huge black tube testing machine with numerous buttons, a large ammeter on the front and even a set of punch cards you could stick in it. Turn on the red light, turn up the shortwave radio, and presto - my brother and I were were on a perilous journey to mars....Anonymous
6 years ago
November 17 2005, 13:28:04 UTC 6 years ago
November 17 2005, 15:31:21 UTC 6 years ago
Anonymous
November 17 2005, 15:42:47 UTC 6 years ago
Love it!
You're a very, very lucky person to have had a father that went to so much trouble for you, AND was so creative in such a groovy way. I'm so glad you rescued it and shared it with us all.Anonymous
November 17 2005, 17:14:11 UTC 6 years ago
SELL IT ON THE EBAY
HEY - YOU GONNA SELL IT ON THE EBAY AUCTION?VERY COOL INDDED.
November 17 2005, 17:32:08 UTC 6 years ago
Anonymous
November 17 2005, 17:33:55 UTC 6 years ago
If this were mine..
.. I would most definately find a way to stash a real computer inside of it, and sit it up on the desk next to my monitor. Complete with light show.. Someday I'm going to make myself a HAL-9000. :)Anonymous
November 17 2005, 17:41:39 UTC 6 years ago
What a Dad!
This story brought tears to my eye and a strong recollection of a story I told at my Mothers funeral a few years ago. As a kid I lusted for one of those tin toy gas stations. They were so cool with all the figures, oil cans, gas pumps etc. But they weren't cheap and not in our budget. But what's a kid know about "budget". I was crestfallen and Mom knew it. So one afternoon she comes into my room with a cardboard box, some tape, glue, toothpicks, plastic wrap and a stack of magazines and she proceeded to help me build my own gas station, complete with pumps, a lift, a plastic window, the works! That moment meant more to me years latter than any tin toy ever would. (I am crying now as I write this.) Thanks Mom! And thanks to YOUR Dad for wonderful moments like these.Gary
November 17 2005, 23:03:41 UTC 6 years ago
Re: What a Dad!
wow... that brought tears to MY eyes too!!! Those moments of creating together are the most special memories of all.← Ctrl← Alt
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