I would not, by writing this, presume to lecture you about the passing of time. Time flows like water and our bodies corrode in it until, in our seventies, eighties, or nineties, we pass on, and there is nothing left to oxidize. Once we become a certain age I think we are so very keenly aware of that. At least, I am.
It took some effort to recollect. Looking back is like opening the attic door. You lift aside the door and shove a ladder through the hole, climb up and poke your head through. As your eyes adjust to the darkness you see the light sifting through the eaves, particles of dust floating in the rays. There’s your handprint in the dust on the edge where the cover for the attic doorway lay. Smells musty. On the floor there is the memory you’re looking for, an old photograph that dropped and lay still so long ago, barely visible for all the dust that lies on top of it. Let’s pick it up and dust it off.
I moved to a little town called Eaton, Colorado in the autumn of 1985. Signed up for the eighth grade there, I learned that the last hour of every Monday was dedicated to what they called “mini-courses”. Mini-courses were small extracurricular classes you could take so long as you were on good terms academically. They ranged from model rocketry to plastic models to computers, among other things. They were almost hobby-esque. Indeed, I selected plastic models there, and it became a hobby which I pursue to this day.
The prerequisite for the model building mini-course was, of course, that one had to have a model to build. My mother had done her homework in the yellow pages, and so we piled in the car for the ride to Greeley, ten miles away, to make our purchase. We arrived downtown on 10th street at a store called Don’s Hobbies. Little was I to know that it would become a fixture in my life.
Don’s Hobbies was composed of a three story building and a basement. The building was old and dated from the ‘20’s, and it had a large chimney on the roof which vented the smoke from the boilers it had once used for heat. The front had a yellow painted façade with matching awning, under which gleamed huge picture windows that showcased a raised display floor. Behind the glass perched huge model kits, train sets, rockets-everything a growing boy could want in consumption of his free time. Model kits, dolls, and rockets were on the first floor, radio controlled vehicles of all types resided on the second, and a slot car track and wargaming room occupied the third floor. The basement housed model trains.
My brother and I walked in, and were immediately awed. Aisle upon aisle of model kits in all shapes and sizes. The boxes had dramatic pictures on the front of them of airplanes roaring through the sky in frozen painted combat, or Sherman tanks forging through the hedgerows of Normandy. Above us on the wall were the largest models, huge eight-engined bombers, semi-trucks, or Star Trek kits. It was as if we had been picked up and dropped into heaven, right into the vessels and vehicles in which our heroes rode to glory. Which one to pick?
After much time spent gawking over every possible selection, to our mother’s great relief we finally exited the store. We each picked a model kit, and selected some paint and glue as well. We were rung up at the front desk by a woman with a crooked eye, using an ancient cash register. She put our kits in large brown paper bags and pushed them across the counter. We clutched them as if holding gold bars, the rustle of paper and smell of the store keen in our minds as we sat in the car on the way home. They were greasy with fingerprints and possibly saliva long before we’d gotten home. We were pretty poor and it was not often that we would come home with something so cool, much less completely unnecessary.
Day one of the mini-course came, and everyone in the class waited while safety rules were outlined before beginning. Then, using our newly purchased X-acto knives, we freed our kits from their packaging and dove in with relish. My brother had selected an SR-71 Blackbird spyplane, and I had picked out a P-61 Black Widow night fighter. I don’t know why we both picked black airplanes.
Over the semester, those Monday afternoons on which we gathered to continue working on our models were halcyon days. My brother and I met many friends there, and four or five of us continued to build models long after the mini-course ended. We found any way we could to travel to Greeley, and often we would spend hours at Don’s before we’d decide on a new model. The old wooden floors creaked under our feet, and in the summer we sweated as we picked up boxes to read the details. Don’s had no air conditioning. Then it was off to home to crack open the box, and to immediately begin gluing and painting. We took less care than we should have, and in those early days there was much excess glue spilled out of seams and hardened into a gooey mess, and paint was brushed on haphazardly in uneven layers. But slowly we improved, and upon completing our latest kit, we would gather at someone’s house to show it off. I don’t know if they were really that impressive, but we oo-ed and ahh-ed just the same.
The time came when building models had to give way to part-time jobs and first cars and concerts. We all became busy with plans after high school, and the informal group we had was sundered. Models were destroyed or left to collect dust. I was the only one who remained somewhat active in it. Even then, I found fewer and fewer opportunities to visit Don’s, and I too languished as adult life took over. Don’s became a fond memory for a while, and a fixture that I thought would never depart. Twenty years passed.
After those few years, I picked up the hobby again. As I settled in to married life and moved into a house that had enough room to allow a hobby again, I began visiting Don’s again. They had new owners though and it wasn’t the same. I could tell already. They cared little for anything other than radio control, and it showed in the new owners’ demeanor. I smelled death at Don’s Hobbies. I tried to spend as much money as I could there in order to support them, but as time went on they stocked less product and fewer new models. Then they announced they were moving to a new building across town, and my foreboding grew worse. Their old location was taken by a Hispanic appliance store. At the new store they focused on radio control and began to offer aquarium products and fish. What once was a great hall of models now amounted to two or three shelves of dusty, ancient kits.
And then the day came. My wife and I had decided to meet for lunch, and I suggested the local sub shop since it was right next to Don’s, and I needed some supplies anyway. We drove together in my Jeep, and as I pulled up, the windows looked darker than usual. Immediately I got a lump in my stomach, but I denied it and walked over to the door. It was locked. There was no sign. I cupped my hands to the glass to look inside and of course it was empty. One empty counter and dirty floors were all that remained of my childhood friend. It was like looking at a grave. That was that. The companion that had kept me busy for so many nights under a desk lamp in a corner of my room, and in whom I had spent cumulatively probably days, if not weeks, wandering the aisles, was gone. Don’s was gone.
I still build models. I’m pretty good at it. I buy most of my stuff online now, but every time I do, I am reminded of those days wandering Don’s aisles in search of a new project. The friendliness of the old clerk Tony back in the day and the smile of his wife who had the crooked eye haunt me like ghosts. I drive by the old brick building from time to time, and I see the spirits of our youth comparing their newest purchases in the parking lot. Brick buildings and model kits mark the passage of time like totems of adolescence. I suppose all things must change. Maybe this styrene I work with will serve as a granite marker. In remembrance.