Building Models

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.

Toy Soldiers

One day I was playing in the back yard, when I heard some voices coming from my neighbors garage. They were the voices of some older boys, and they sounded like they were having a very good time. I heard muffled shouts, commands, and some laughing.

Curious, I climbed over the fence and snuck over to the garage to see what was happening. I peeked into an open side door, and spied three boys of junior high school age playing with toy tanks, trucks, airplanes and soldiers.

I was delighted! I’d always loved playing with toy soldiers in the mud in my backyard. What these boys was doing looked very different, however. First of all, the soldiers were much smaller - each soldier appeared to be one inch high. I was used to playing with soldiers closer to four inches tall.

They also appeared to be playing a game with very formalized rules. Whereas I had just been playing for fun, these older boys appeared to be taking their game very seriously. They carefully planned their strategy, and spent quite some time determining the results of each attack, bomb and bullet.

Their garage was a little dusty, and before long I sneezed. One of the boys heard me, and told me to come out from hiding. I did, and they looked me over.

"Well", one of the larger boys said. "What do you think you were doing, spying on us like that?"

"I didn’t mean any harm", I said. "I’m your next door neighbor. I heard you playing over here, and it sounded very interesting. I came over to see what you were doing."

"Oh", he answered. "Well, we’re playing wargames. Would you like to play?"

Of course I was delighted. I soon found out my new-found friend’s name was Bruce, and he’d been playing wargames for several years. He had purchased several dozen models of tanks, trucks and other equipment, and a thousand or so toy soldiers.

Bruce told me I could play if I purchased and built up my own army. That was one of the rules of play. I think he told me this to try to discourage me, not expecting a little boy like myself to have the patience, time or money to get involved.

Over the next few months, I purchased several tank and truck model kits. I spent long hours after school patiently putting together these models, and carefully painting each one to match the illustration on the cover of the box. I also bought hundreds and then thousands of soldiers to man my new armies.

Unlike everyone else in the wargaming club, I purchased soldiers and equipment for all sides in World War II. I wanted to be able to stage my own battles at my own house without requiring the other kids to buy their own armies. I knew that they'd all love to play, but most of them didn’t have anywhere near the money or patience that I had.

As Bruce saw me building up a huge collection of military models, he was delighted. He became even more friendly with me, and greatly encouraged me to continue onward with my newfound hobby. We played wargames often, and he almost always won.

As the months went by, I spent more and more time playing with my new toys. I loved building the models, I loved painting the soldiers, and I loved researching the strategies and tactics used by the generals in the original conflicts.

My friends and I spent many long hours in my bedroom, recreating huge battles from World War II. We used my model railroad layout as a battlefield, and spent countless hours writing up new and complex rules to govern play.

Soon all of my neighborhood friends were involved. They began purchasing and building their own armies, although nobody had anywhere near as many pieces of equipment as I did. Some of them even went so far as to paint their models after they were finished gluing them together.

Ah, yes, we had some mighty battles on that piece of plywood. I got very good at strategy and tactics, and usually won my battles. I soon learned, however, that my friends quickly lost interest in this game if they constantly lost. So I became careful to let everyone else win sometimes, and I made sure my victories didn’t happen too easily.

After a while, I slowly began to approach Bruce in tactical abilities. The battles we fought in his garage became longer and more drawn out. I forced him to work harder and harder to win - Bruce was much to proud to ever let someone else win.

Finally, after a battle that took an entire weekend, I finally beat Bruce. It was a close game - every man in his army was killed, and I was left with three men alive - but I still won. And I won the next one, and the one after that. In fact, after winning that one battle, I never lost to Bruce again.

When we moved to Lake Arrowhead, I packed my armies away. They remained packed away for a few years, until I managed to get some new friends in high school. I invited them over, and we played a few wargames. For perhaps a month, several of my high school friends came over and played this game with me. Unfortunately, they soon grew bored, and we stopped playing. This time, I packed the armies away for good. They remain carefully stored in small plastic boxes, waiting for someone to come and play with them once again.  

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