My Childhood: Building Model Airplanes

One of my first serious hobbies was building model airplanes, boats and cars, from kits purchased in a local store. I sat in my bedroom to sit for hours, patiently decoding the instructions (often printed in Japanese) and carefully fitting the little plastic pieces together.

I started with simple models of things like dinosaurs and planes, but soon moved on to more complex kits of warships and tanks. Eventually, I even managed to build a few massively complex models of old wooden ships.

I built a lot of model airplanes. Hundreds of them. I had them sitting on bookshelves, hanging from the ceiling and stuffed in dresser drawers. Sometimes, I would tire of a particular model, and smash it up, pretending it had some serious and massive crash. This was always done with a certain amount of theatrical flair, and was great fun.

I also loved to build models of warships, like the Graf Spee and the mighty battleships of the U.S. fleet. I didn’t like these as much as model airplanes, however, because I thought most ships all looked alike. Once I had built a dozen or so, I had seen them all.

Then I found my first model of an old wooden sailing ship - The U.S.S. Constitution. This was fantastic. I spent hours upon hours building the hull, gluing together little cannon, stringing the rigging and adding the sails. When it was finished, I stood back to admire it. And tripped. One of the masts broke off. Hours of work were undone.

Suddenly, I was mad. I was furious! I took that wonderful model and threw it against the wall. It shattered into a thousand pieces, scattering all over the floor. I was immediately sorry for what I’d done, but it was too late. The ship was destroyed.

When I began building models, I used the standard model glue which is slightly toxic. It also made me a little light-headed, made my eyes water and smelled awful. Within a few years, I found a new glue called lemon glue that was much better. I could sniff that all night and it wouldn’t do anything at all.

I built models all through my childhood, right up until my mid-teens (the start of high school). At that time, I carefully packed away all of the tanks, truck and ship models, and I haven’t built a single one since. The airplane models disappeared. I have no idea what happened to them.

I still have hundreds of military models, still carefully packed away. Some were finished, others remain uncompleted. I also have a few dozen unopened boxes containing kits to be built. Perhaps sometime in the future I’ll finish them.