SMRC-2-73-scan-1
Sacramento Model Railroad Club, February 1973
My social life in high school did not revolved around sports or drinking parties or school dances or other "normal" American high school activities. Most Friday nights throughout the 1970s saw me downtown at 14th and J at the Sacramento Model Railroad Club, which had a layout in a 40x60 foot loft over Beers Book Store, next door to a theater that showed variously art and porno films.
Today that space is occupied by the Sacramento Convention Center, and long before the convention center cleared most of the block for its expansion, the club had been forced to move in 1981 when the bookstore downstairs lost its lease at another location and was forced to move all of its stock downtown.
Instead of a space that the landlord let us have for $100 per month, the bookstore offered market rate rent and we decamped to Grand Avenue, where the club remains to this day.
That was long in the future in February 1973. I had just tuned 16, the age when I could become a junior member of the club after hanging out there for a year or two as a visitor. I was now allowed behind the layout and took advantage of my new status as well as my mom's newly repaired 35 mm camera, to get some photo of one night's operations.
43 years later, I'm still in touch with Charley Lix and Kevin Bunker , who show in one of these photos
SMRC-2-73-scan-1
Sacramento Model Railroad Club, February 1973
My social life in high school did not revolved around sports or drinking parties or school dances or other "normal" American high school activities. Most Friday nights throughout the 1970s saw me downtown at 14th and J at the Sacramento Model Railroad Club, which had a layout in a 40x60 foot loft over Beers Book Store, next door to a theater that showed variously art and porno films.
Today that space is occupied by the Sacramento Convention Center, and long before the convention center cleared most of the block for its expansion, the club had been forced to move in 1981 when the bookstore downstairs lost its lease at another location and was forced to move all of its stock downtown.
Instead of a space that the landlord let us have for $100 per month, the bookstore offered market rate rent and we decamped to Grand Avenue, where the club remains to this day.
That was long in the future in February 1973. I had just tuned 16, the age when I could become a junior member of the club after hanging out there for a year or two as a visitor. I was now allowed behind the layout and took advantage of my new status as well as my mom's newly repaired 35 mm camera, to get some photo of one night's operations.
43 years later, I'm still in touch with Charley Lix and Kevin Bunker , who show in one of these photos