When my father was a young man, one of his hobbies was building model battle ships. As a young boy I remember walking into my grandparents dining room and being amazed at the level of detail that was obvious from my amateurish gaze of a dozen or so models that stood solemnly locked away in a glass china cabinet. Each and every one of the ships was perfectly glued and painted with so much care and detail that you could almost imagine these scaled versions of aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers to have been the real thing and somehow they were placed into a "shrinking" machine by some mad scientist. I remember straddling one of the dining room chairs with my chin against the back support, gazing through the glass doors while my imagination would run wild with scenario after scenario of these magnificent ships out in the open ocean waging war against some formidable enemy. To my surprise though, my father was more of an air man, with childhood and young men dreams of becoming a pilot which never realized themselves because of the simple fact that he did not have 20/20 vision. Yet there was not a single model of an airplane in the display case of his childhood hobby.
As I grew up I too loved building scaled models. I would spend hour after hour putting together every single airplane model my parents would gift to me whenever they could do so. Antique airplanes, military airplanes, commercial ones too. By the time I was 9 years old I must of already have built at least 50 different models. Patiently cutting out each and every plastic piece, painting it with excruciating detail, gluing it, sanding it, and then retouching it with filler and more paint. It was typical of me to sometimes get so excited about another model before I had even finished putting the decals on the one I was working on that it would sit in a corner waiting to be finished with several more in the same state of incompleteness. Apparently it was not about seeing them completely done that excited me the most. Instead it was the process, the challenge, the finding out how difficult it would be to put it together that drew me into this hobby. I was once gifted a 747 model which I spent long hours putting together. In those days we lived in Phoenix Arizona, where temperatures outdoors frequently exceeded 112 degrees. After finishing the building process I ignorantly left the mode outside hoping the paint would dry quicker. When I returned to check on it several hours later, the wings had curled up in the shape of donuts because of the outdoor heat. It frustrated me for the length of time that it took me to drop it in the nearest trash can, probably because by then I was already inside building another one.
As an adult, I once tried sharing this model building passion with my brother who is 12 years younger than me. On one of his visits to California, I thought it would be a good brother bonding experience to teach him how to build a model ship. We bought the USS Arizona and set ourselves to do the best job we could at building it. It took us days to cut out the pieces, sand the edges, paint them, and eventually glue and fill any gaps. We were so proud at our accomplishment that we placed it on the dining room table for everyone, especially ourselves, to admire for a while. The details were amazing and we had even taken the time to create any wires and cables out of melted plastic for greater realism. One day after we had finished building the model, my then wife came back from the grocery store and without noticing what she was doing dropped one of the heavy brown bags filled with milk and other goods right on top or our fragile accomplishment. At the moment it was so frustrating to see how so much work had simply come to its fatal end in such a quick instant in time. After the momentary impact of its demise, again, just as in the past, I just grabbed all the pieces and dumped them in a trash can without hesitation. The process of building the model with my brother was what held true value, not the model in itself. Even though it represented our success in some material and physical way, the real evidence of what we had done was contained within us, in our sense of pride, in all of the brotherly bonding that took place during its creation.
It is only fit that today I sit deep inside the belly of one of these magnificent war machines writing this short post to you. Within the past 25 years of my life I have been a part of these vessels in one way or the other. Testing their radars, missiles, guns, torpedoes, and helping train the men and women that call them home for many months at a time is just part of what I do for a living. The childhood hobby of replicating has merged with the adulthood responsibility of making things happen in real life. It takes great men and women to defend and protect our freedom, without them who knows what kind of a country this great nation would be. I understand that I am just one bolt, if at all, of this grand processing machine that keeps moving towards the future without blinking during its path. So even though today, Saturday, I rather be in the total comfort of my own home, I do understand why I am here instead. This is where I am supposed to be today and as much as I might rather be somewhere else, we all have things that we do in spite of what we rather be doing because it is our job.
The incredibly loud sound of a helicopter landing and then taking off from the rear of this ship and just above my berthing has passed away. The continuous rocking motion will not stop until hours after I have disembarked. Some things are temporary in life, others not. What we do with them when they are happening is what matters. Years after my father passed away, his mother, my grandmother remarried and her life continued on. As she sold the old house where my father was raised, without hesitation she disposed of the arduous labor of a childhood dream that was contained in each one of my dad's model ships. It would of been great for me to have at least one to remember him, but the truth is that I have my memories instead which cannot be crushed by a gallon of milk or anything else. What memories do you have that are so powerful that nothing and nobody can take away? Do yourself a favor, keep the good ones and simply recycle the not so good ones. I promise you that it is the right thing to do.
Dad
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