As the old folks always said, "He came by it honestly"
Here I am on the left, probably around 1977 or 1978 at Natural Bridge, Florida. I grew up doing civil war re-enactments with the family (my brother is in the center, and Dad- who passed away in June- is to the right).
So wearing old style uniforms were normal to me as early as 5, as we did Revolutionary War stuff during the bicentennial.
In the 80s, my brother decided to go Air Force ROTC, and he got the Cockpit catalogs. I used to drool over all the neat stuff that was in those, in a time when you never saw anything else like in the mainstream. Not too long ago I got an Avirex A2 that fits for not much money. I like wearing it every now and then...
Around the same time, I found a WW2 class A enlisted uniform in excellent condition, which fit me like a glove (I was very thin back then). From deciding I wanted the tie and shoes to go with it, the combat uniforms came next, then the small arms.
As I grew up very close by to the remains of a WW2 fighter training field, I started collecting stuff from there. It didn't take long until I wanted into the AAF stuff. This was right at the height of the Japanese buying all the original jackets they could, I managed to find several from people who'd rather take a financial hit but keep them in the US. Most didn't fit, but several did.
I then got into doing AAF living history.
In the late 90s, almost pushing the cutoff age (I got pinned on as a 1LT on my 30th birthday), I decided to do it for real and became an Army officer. Sadly, some folks aren't built for the running and after suffering consecutive stress fractures for a long timeframe, I called it quits after a few years.
But before I left for active duty, I had a massive selloff for my WW2 stuff I didn't think I'd wanna lug around the world. All my original A2s got sold off then.
I'm in my 50s now, and mostly just do war correspondent impressions and displays but still have all the good AAF stuff that fits me...