I've gotten back into building after many years. I've never been an eBay shopper, but after reading some forum posts about the things people have found there, I got notalgic and decided to see if I could find kits I built as a kid.
I actually found quite a few. The Revell Baa Baa Black Sheep Corsair and Zero. The Mongram /148 scale ers (B-17/25/26/29), and many others.
So I thunk and thunk and thunk, trying to remember the first kit I built.
I'd come home from school- probably 3rd grade, 1975 or so, with straight A's. I was excited, my mom was excited. She called my dad, and he was so proud of me. He said "I'll bring a surprise home for you."
So I rode my bike, round and round, in front of my house, until finally, finally, I saw the big front end of his Lincoln Continental coming down the street.
I raced along side him, pulling into the driveway with him. I jumped off the bike, and he got out of the car. "Where's the surprise?" He looked at me and said "What? What surprise" I hollered "Daaaaaaad!" He smiled, and from behind his back emerged a box with an airplane on it. A Thunderbolt. Flying through an explosion, riddled with bullet holes. A hero's plane.
I built it that night. The cover made the plane look brown, and so I asked my mom to get me brown paint. She did. Gloss brown. I didn't know better. I loved it.
The pilot's name was Captain Thunderbolt. For years, he provided air supprt to my army of plastic soldiers. He always saved the day, even when things looked bad.
I loved that plane.
I got older, it went into a box, and eventually it got thrown away and I forgot about Captain Thunderbolt and his shiny brown P-47B.
Until today.
Gentleman, say what you will about eBay. But today, as I write this, I sit with an unbuilt, 1/72 Lindberb P-47B Thunderbolt. It's been over 30 years since I held that box, the instructions, wondered at the parts on the sprues.
I've got 2 kids, a wife and a house. I'm 6-3 and 300 lbs. I've been to war and jumped out of airplanes and driven race cars and I think I'm a pretty tough guy.
But I have tears streaming down my face. This little plane reminds me of a time gone by when life was much simpler and worries were few.
I realize how good it has been for me to get back into building s. It's put me in touch with something that I was missing.
And this little Lindberg , with giant rivets and no detail, is now my most cherished kit.
I post this to share it with all of my new friends here on the forums, because I know more than a few of you will "get it".
So here, after more than 30 years, is my first kit.
