For as long as I can remember I have had an urge to create. As a young child, this manifested itself with an insatiable curiosity of how things work. My parents used to time me on Christmas morning to see how long it took me to take apart whatever toy I was given – not with an eye to destroy, but with a desire to understand how that toy was created. (In many cases, I was just as happy building things out of the empty boxes.) I had blocks, Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, Lego Blocks, and Erector Sets. My Aunt Ina and Uncle Sam had a set of dominoes and when I visited them, I would use them to build whatever came to mind, always curious about what the little white dots were all about.
I have been building scale models since I was about 9 years old. Although that means I have over 50 years of experience, I have to mention that the best modeler I know is my little brother, Tom. His eye for detail is exceptional and his techniques appear to be second-nature. We don’t compete or anything, but his is the expertise to which I aspire.
Scale modeling is a solitary endeavor – I would have the plastic model, instructions, glue, and paint arrayed in front of me, and a radio tuned to a Knoxville AM station, most likely WNOX or WKGN. By the time I was in high school, FM radio became popular, and I listened to WOKI out of Oak Ridge.