It is funny but, as we get older we tend to forget how fun it was to be younger. It seems that in your youth it is totally cool if you are obsessed with mega-man. And its fine if you spent ungodly amounts of time working on 1:34 scale master grade models of Gundum Wing characters what else do you have to do? Third graders don't get homework.

But at some point we grow up and in this grown up state we look back on those days. We see the hour upon hours we used to spend on these things. What did that time teach us. I certainty was not ever the best at doing homework. I look back and think how I really used to just enjoy those things for the pure enjoyment of putting them together.

I started my long time love with models in small lead civil war figurines. My grandfather, who is a huge civil war buff (who's doesn't have a family member like this). Would take me to a small collectibles store near my house where we would purchase small lead soldier figurines. You would buy the figures unpainted and in a assortment of poses. We would take them home and paint them to look as close to the real soldiers in my grandfathers books as possible. We had cavalry and cannon units. Soon we were staging skirmishes and reenacting small battles.

I had gotten excited because we had accumulated about 75 different figurines and I just bought an Abraham Lincoln figure in hopes of reenacting Gettysburg.

This is when a harsh realization happened in my life. My Grandfather explained to me that our almost 75 man collection was not even close to the amount of men involved in Gettysburg. He explained that close to 93,000 men we involved in that battle. He also explained that close to 52,000 men had died in that 3 day battle. Even if it was a great turning point in the war it was a massacre for both sides.

I started to look at my figures in a different light. Each one represented a man and in the real world my 75 men would have had stories. At age 7 I started to really wonder about the world. I still have that Abraham Lincoln figurine, he reminds me of what has happened before me. I look at him some times and have a new respect for life and the future.