Steve Blow:
His life's been true to scale models
Steve
Blow:
His life's been true to scale models
07:32 PM CDT on Friday, April 22, 2005
It takes a couple of canes, but the world is spinning right on its axis again. Edgar Seay Sr. is back behind the counter of his Irving hobby shop.
"I barely work bankers' hours these days," he fussed. "But I guess I'm doing all right for 95."
Doing all right? I'd call him a medical marvel – and a treasure of aviation history.
For 57 years now, Mr. Seay has been selling model airplanes from behind the cluttered counter at the M.A.L Hobby Shop on Lee Street in Irving.
He was gone from that spot for a couple of months after having a pacemaker implanted. But now, helped along by a couple of canes, he's working every day again.
For several generations of Irving kids, the hobby shop and the movie theater across the street represented the center of the universe.
But the theater has long since closed and the worn old hobby shop hangs on thanks to adult plane and train hobbyists.
"I don't see that many youngsters. And I'll bet you could count on one hand the number of fathers and sons who came in the store together in the last year," sighed Edgar Seay Jr., who has worked alongside his father in the shop for his entire life.
"Junior," as most folks call him, is only 63.
For many years, from the time he was a boy, Mr. Seay Jr. also ran Junior's Comic Book Exchange at one end of the hobby shop. That added to the allure of the place as kid heaven.
Mr. Seay Sr. first opened Model Aircraft Laboratories from his home in Dallas in 1945. Then, in 1948, he moved to Irving to open M.A.L. Hobby Shop.
Mr. Seay began building model planes as a boy. By the time he was in his teens, he was also working on the real things, making him a bona fide pioneer in aircraft mechanics and manufacturing.
In fact, his career has covered almost the entire history of aviation. He was born in 1909 – less than six years after the Wright Brothers first flew.
When he casually mentions famous aviation names – Beech, Stinson, etc. – he's talking about people he knew, not the airplanes they produced.
Mr. Seay remembers well the first airplane he ever saw. It was on a Sunday morning in 1917 or '18 in his hometown of Arkadelphia, Ark. "A World War I pilot landed a Curtiss Jenny in a hay meadow just south of town, down past the cotton mill. He wanted to impress a girl there in town."
Mr. Seay grinned at the memory. "My buddy and I skipped Sunday school and church and went down there. I started asking the pilot all sorts of technical questions, and he finally said, 'Son, I don't know. I just fly the damn thing.' "
With his amazing mind for technical detail, talking with Mr. Seay can still be a dizzying experience. I asked about one of his first flights in an airplane.
"It was a Curtiss Robin," he began, then detoured into a complete history of engines used in the Robin. "First was the OX-5, which was just 90 horsepower. Then came the Wright J6. And there were several models of those ..."
Finally he got around to a great story about the actual flight – with a midget friend occupying the baggage compartment.
When Mr. Seay began building models, they were all balsa wood and paper. And that's still the old-style kit he produces and sells to modeling enthusiasts all over the world.
He prides himself on the finely cut balsa sheets and spars he's still turning out with the band saw in the back of his shop. "I've been cutting over 70 years and still have all my fingers," he said, wiggling them as evidence.
In more recent years, Mr. Seay's packrat nature has paid off as his trove of old aircraft books and bric-a-brac has become Internet gold (www.malhobby.com).
"I've been blessed all my life," Mr. Seay confessed.
As far as retirement plans, he's got none. "I'll work as long as I can," he said.
After all, he's only 95.
E-mail sblow@dallasnews.com