28 June 2020

Two Items Bought from Mark Twain Hobby

Yesterday afternoon (27 June), I drove to Mark Twain Hobby Center (https://www.hobby1.com/) in St. Charles. I went to pick up an item I ordered on their website that morning, a Super Casting Kit from Alumilite (https://www.alumilite.com/). It has materials for making rubber molds and resin castings. This would enable me to make duplicates of model parts for my projects. I have one in mind in the coming weeks for a model kit I'm working on now, and another kit I want to work on in the future. I just have to learn how this all works and put it in practice.


Before picking up that kit, I browsed among the scale modeling items on the shelves--model kits, tools, finishing supplies, and publications.

I was about to check out with that casting kit when I noticed a book on a shelf near the check out counter. It was "Up There with the Biggest: The Story of Ozark Airlines." My friend Alan B. Hoffman, who I know from the Missouri Aviation Historical Society (https://moavhist.org/), wrote the book and he self-published it last year through The Book Patch (https://www.thebookpatch.com/). "Up There with the Biggest" tells the story of Ozark Airlines, a Local Service Airline based in St. Louis that operated from 1950 until 1986, when it was merged into Trans World Airlines (TWA). This book has stories about the airline, its leadership and personnel, aircraft it flew, services provided, and generally tells the highs and lows of Ozark. I added this to my purchases, and I hope that Hoffman can sign my copy sometime.


After checking out at Mark Twain, I headed home, stopping on the way at QuipTrip (https://www.quiktrip.com/) to add fuel to my car.

Later.