Modelers-Original Recyclers
Paul Harvey
MODELERS are the original recyclers. You can tell a home workshop enthusiast all the way across the restaurant dining room. He's the one who uses his paper napkin carefully then puts it in his pocket. And any plastic teaspoons. And any chopsticks or whatever.
Modelers rescue for re-use shirtboards, popsickle sticks, most containers and the caps off all of them. Anything of any kind that he can place under, stir with or hold in.
The modeler is the guy who unwraps most anything and treasures most — the packing. In his hands dead toothbrushes will live again to spread contact cement. Straight pins will become rivets in his dreams. Old pajamas will find new uses wiping, dusting, scrubbing.
The modeler will race the junk man to any good-for-nothing that might stir, strain, hold, hinge or which may be good for something someday. Old jars.
Lovingly, the modeler looks at her nylon stockings and sees something that someday, properly fragmented, will strain paint or filter a carb. Plastic bags.
And, of course, any stray nut or bolt or hasp or clasp — any mismatched, mongrel tubing, any detached, orphaned toy — any scrap of anything which might someday become a sanding block, a torque rod, a counterweight or trim.
Old fingernail files and purloined new ones which will smooth crevices or corners or something somewhere sometime maybe. Anything that might clip, clamp, hold up, weigh down or stick to is potentially precious in his sight. Swiped lipstick for what you do not want glue to stick to and emory boards for when you do. And the airliner's throwaway plastic napkin rings, retrieved, will become glue clamps.
The Government wants us all to save, re-use and make-do.
Modelers always have.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
