Thanks Mark. I'm really glad that we moved he when he was seven. In a couple of weeks he turns 17. He has his own car, is really cute, girls like him very much and he's basically finished working in the basement with me (although I force him downstairs to get his approval on all the latest additions). I have his younger brother for a couple more years and then he'll go the same route. I'm cultivating another protege… the son of a mentee who I meet periodically. He's going on 8, loves trains and showing all the signs of being a good model builder.
I stopped the trains at the exact same times, as did all of us. But while a sophomore in college, discovered a nice local hobby shop and bought a model and some supplies. I built models in the dorm and all my 'sophisticated' dorm mates would stop by, check on progress, and lament how much fun they used to have doing it. From that point on I never stopped. The picture below is Michele in our first apartment about a month after we were married, where there is a box in the corner with an almost complete Tamiya Tiger Tank kit while she was writing thank-you notes to our wedding guests on a folding bridge table. This wasn't even our real apartment. It was a temporary while the real apartment's building was being completed. To me, model making has always been my stress relief… still is.
The picture dates from May or June 1968. That little metal cookie box below the model held ALL of my modeling supplies. Now my tools occupy and entire shop. Progress! Tamiya had just come on the American market at that time.
