Skip to main content

Throwback Thursday. . . um, Friday. . .

The young, long-haired Stokes, referred to occasionally here.  I was about 17 (Thank you Janis Ian), and I think the photograph dates from April or May of 1984.
Not sure which one of us looks more wilted here, the potted plant, or yours truly.  In any case, there are not many photos from those heady days of the 1980s that have been digitized, but here is some evidence that might be used against me in a court of law.  

The curl is natural, assisted only by a few spritzes of Vidal Sasson hairspray (what was I thinking?), although it looks from this photo like the poodle-like souffle of hair on the crown of my head had fallen, or been mashed, by this point in the day.  Look closely, and you'll also spot a RUSH concert t-shirt.  The Canadian band was a favorite of my drummer buddy Donny (we still talk on the phone once in a while), a year ahead of me, and I admired the playing of that band's bass and keyboard player Geddy Lee a great deal at the time.  

This was also the time, more or less, when I had the bright idea of attempting to paint up 15mm corp-sized Waterloo-era forces.  Blame the late Paddy Griffith and his book Napoleonic Wargaming for Fun.  Sadly, and despite painting sporadically for the next 20 years, the project never quite came to fruition due to life, college, graduate school, and so forth.  I really must figure out what to do with those boxes of painted and unpainted 15mm figures one day!

-- Stokes

Comments

Peter Douglas said…
Long curly hair is coming back into style, just saying!

Cheers
PD
6:57 AM
Steve-the-Wargamer said…
Good choice in t-shirt.... :o)
7:23 AM
El Grego said…
An excellent choice of attire, but hairspray??
8:42 AM
Mad Padre said…
We all have those pictures somewhere, and they all prove that 1980s eyewear was deeply misguided.
At least you get extra marks for the RUSH Tshirt.
8:42 AM
Unknown said…
My boys (all in there 20's) have found various pictures of me circa 1975 when I was 18..long hair, cheese cloth shirt, flairs and aviator sun glasses. As you can imagine the hilarity at my expense tickles them pink! As I say to them, today is all imitation...we were there.

Great photo.

Simon
4:54 PM
Fitz-Badger said…
There was a period of time (from about junior high through my 20s and even into my 30s) where I assiduously avoided getting my picture taken. No high school yearbook photos, no family photos, and very little else other than ID photos. I still don't get my picture taken often, but don't really try to avoid it these days. It's more a matter of circumstances - it's not often anyone tries to take my picture.

Yes, I did have my long hair days, days of beards, uncool clothing, etc.

(birthday leadup trip down memory lane?)
6:26 PM
Gallia said…
Stokes,
You could raise forces for the late 1600s inspired by your long hair.
Bill
7:46 PM
Jim Duncan Wargamer said…
Here's me in the 70's.

http://jim-duncan.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/page-3-in-daily-record.html
4:46 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings.  Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat.   The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week.  Next up, the neck stocks.   I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit.  Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step.   "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes
2 comments
Read more

And We're Off!!!

  Arrrgh!  Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus.  Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown.  More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart.   I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands.  In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands.   As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff.  Depending on ...
5 comments
Read more

A Little More Brushwork. . .

    A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday).  Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform.   The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men.  Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished.  Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...
6 comments
Read more