Hey everyone.
I haven’t posted in a while, as life has been really busy. Most of you probably don’t know me at all, and only some of you will recognize my screen name as I haven’t posted much in the past either. I figured that, now that things have calmed down a little bit, now would be as good a time as any to tell you my story- how things started, where they progress, and why it has all now come to a close. It ends here. (don’t take that in any dangerous way, I just mean the journey ends here)
A friend and I have been on props and replicas for a very long time, about six years. In that time we have not created that many items, but we have accomplished much. That’s the short of it. The short of it doesn’t mean much, though. I want to tell you the story as completely as I can so I can convey the importance of the last six years of my life. So, I warn you, this could get a little long. I don’t expect you to read it, but it does involve this website so I figured I would share.
Six years ago, back in the beginning of 2006, I met a guy a little bit older than myself in a coffee shop in the downtown willoughby area here in Ohio (I have no problem telling you where we are, as I’ve done so in the past anyway). It wasn’t really a chance meeting or anything like that, as he lived in the apartments close by, and I lived a city over and was at this coffee shop most days hanging with a lot of my new and old friends. It was the central meetup spot for everyone I hung out with at the time. The owner was awesome and really made the place the most enjoyable place, while he owned it, to be.
Anyway, one day I was introduced to Dave. Dave was an odd fellow, and it seemed we would not really mesh at first as our personalities clashed quite a bit. I thought he was an ■■■■■■■, and he thought I was stupid. We never thought we would get along. Oh, how wrong we were.
As time had gone by, our interactions had gone from almost confrontational to merely saying witty, sarcastic remarks to each other and occasionally having a good laugh at each others, and our own, expense. This is just how it was. That is, until that one fateful day.
Before I get into what happened that day, let me give you a little backstory.
Ghostbusters had been my favorite movie as a child. Both of them, really, but I really had an affinity for the first one. As soon as my family got our first computer and our first internet connection, you can imagine that I started looking up all things ghostbusters related. It was then that I found out that the characters had actors behind them. I know that must seem odd, but as a little boy I never put any thought to the fact that Venkman, Stantz, Spengler, and Zeddemore were anyone else, if that makes sense. As a matter of fact, my mother was a manager at red lobster and I thought the black guy that worked behind the bar was Winston. My mother still teases me about this to this day.
Anyway, I found a few interesting things on the internet. I found the screen name of Norm Gagnon, or at least someone who claimed to be Norm Gagnon. It was something like FXFacade, or FacadeFX or something like that. I talked to him as much as I could, probably bothered him quite a bit, but hey, I was only ten years old at the time (im pretty sure that was my age). I got it into my head that I could build a proton pack replica (by now all my notions of real proton packs that shoot proton streams were…corrected, heh) and the subject of plans for replicas came up. I gave him my address, which could have been a huge mistake if Norm weren’t such a great guy. I was a kid, I didn’t know any better. But the plans came instead of some serial killer and I took them everywhere with me, so happy as a child to be holding a piece of the ghostbusters in my hands.
I also, at that time, found the fan mail address for Dan Aykroyd. I wrote him this long letter that he was supposed to show to Bill Murray to convince him to be a part of GB3. That’s how freaking long THAT ordeal has been going on.
Anyway, the plans ended up going into the drawer in my dresser and stayed there (they may still be in that dresser in my parents house, I dont know. Havent seen them in years- I’m 26 now).
Four years or so later (my times could be way off. I was a little kid, so things seemed shorter and longer in odd proportions), my mother wakes me up during the summer at 9am. I think something is wrong, because it is the summer and I am being woken up at this time of day, and she looks concerned. She is holding something in her hand, a package. She looks at me and says, “Get up. Why are you getting mail from Dan Aykroyd?” I went slack jawed. I had forgotten about the letter I sent him years earlier. I slowly got up and took the package from her hand and opened it. It was a signed picture of them from the “We’re ready to believe you” commercial. As a matter of fact, that’s what it says- “Frank, we’re ready to believe you! -Dan Aykroyd” Here is the picture-
That morning completely blew my mind. The love for the Ghostbusters was forever cemented straight into my heart from that point on.
Years later, coming back to 2006, I was browsing GBFans and decided to download plans to my computer randomly (I forget which plans they were, the simple ones with the yellow background).
So one day, Dave walks in the coffee shop and looks at me and says hey. I knew Dave had built a few pretty cool props for Halloween in the past (a jason mask, a metal freddy glove, etc. etc.) I jokingly said to him, “Hey Dave, I’ve got next years Halloween project set up for you.” He walked over and sat next to me with his coffee, took a sip, and looked at my computer. His eyes went wide. He looked me in the eye and told me about how he has always wanted a proton pack. I said the same.
We got to work right away on getting more detailed plans. I have never been really skilled with building things, and he was an engineer so the physical building was left to him and ideas and research were left to me (not that he didnt do those things, Im just saying that I did what I could). That is how things mostly went for the next six years.
Throughout those years, we explored different ideas to make the pack a bit more functional. We went through the normal ideas that we’ve all gone through- silly string, lasers, water. We finally settled (after buying different things for the other ideas, like laser diodes) on the water idea. It was going to become a big squirt gun with lights and sounds that shot a laminar flow stream. It was going to be pretty cool.
Neither of us never really had a lot of money (especially after Dave lost his job and didnt work for a while, and after my son was born I was really strapped for spending money) but we always had ideas that we were talking about, and things did eventually come to be, albeit slowly. It seems like every time we thought we were getting close to the end, though, we only ended up getting ourselves set back. Usually because at points we had to rely on other people to do things for us that neither of us knew how to do. As an example, we had a guy that was going to weld some gunboxes for us. We bought all the materials, gave him all the measurements, and haven’t heard from him to this day. After that, Dave put together an awesome buck to make a mold from (I did what I could to help make it, filled holes, sanded, bought the materials needed), and we handed it off to a friend of his that said he could do it no problem. Of course, he gave us this really crappy mold and had almost completely destroyed our buck in the process. It seemed like we had one major setback a year. It was almost clockwork- we would work all through the warm months, then as it got cold the setback would happen and it would discourage us and we would take a few months break. Every warm season, though, we were back at it.
Aside from the project, Dave and I just became great friends. We balanced each other out pretty well, at least for a while, and opened each other to new ideas and new ways of thinking in life. So when we weren’t working on the project, we were still hanging out and having a good time, figuring out the world and such. We had many, many adventures.
The proton pack, after so many years of working on it, became less of a project and more of a way of life, a zen of sorts. When we were talking about things completely unrelated to it and trying to figure things out, it would somehow round it’s way back to the pack. (An example of how that would happen- “You just have to let go of the way you think things should be sometimes if you want to get things done. Take the pack, for example, some things didn’t make sense to us but because we remained open minded we were able to get it done,” etc. etc.) The pack, in some ways, had transcended itself in our heads and became a philosophy on life.
We made some good progress since the last buck was destroyed. Dave started work on a new, more accurate buck and we did our research on molding processes and have since become confident that we could do it ourselves.
However, that is where the project ends.
Recently Dave and I have come to some disagreements. I view them as petty, but they seem big enough for him to no longer want to be friends with me.
This happens in life. I understand that this is a part of growing up. I regret it, and I always will, but I accept that these things happen. He was the best friend I ever had, and I’ll never regret the time we had together. Further than the great friendship we built, we got to indulge ourselves for a long time in one of our childhood fantasies, but that dream ends here. I don’t have the skills myself to move it forward, but that is ok.
This brings me to why I am posting this here. I wanted to say thank you to all of you. GBFans and it’s members have been a constant and awesome source of information and entertainment. I’ve been coming here for a long time, and I’m sure I still will, but not as often. I just wanted to make sure to tell you all how much easier and better you have made things for me as far as this project is concerned, and in life in general.
Thanks everyone, and keep it going. My life, and the lives of others are enriched by you guys. Thanks for being there.
-Frank Catena