My Childhood Treasure: The U.S.S. Enterprise

While I sit and write, I look up on my shelf and on top, cocked at an angle towards me is the Starship U.S.S. Enterprise. I take it down and dust it once in a while so it’s hull stays white rather than a dingy gray and examine it for scrapes. The paint job I did on it was amateurish in the extreme.

Not long ago, a simaler question was asked in my VA writing group. And I realized the oldest thing from my childhood that I’m attached to is that model.

I purchased it when I was thirteen from Miley’s Hobby Hut in Alamosa Colorado. Miley was old when I met her way back then and I’m sure she’s gone now as is her business. But I recall walking into her store and seeing the model of the Enterprise in the old AMT box waiting to be assembled.

I had recently discovered Star Trek, and the graceful lines of the starship had captivated me. And since I had the money, I purchased it, took it home and put it together.

For years it was on my dresser in my room next to a model of the Battleship Bismarck. The Bismarck fell off the shelf one dayh and shattered. The Enterprise lost a nacelle in the same accident, but I was able to fix it.

When I went to college, it went with me, bouncing from one dorm room to the other. Sometimes it sat on a shelf. Sometimes it was suspended from the ceiling, moving ever so slightly in the breezes caused by the AC or heaters in the room. One day I came back to find most of the threads that hung it from the ceiling had broken. Only one thread remained to keep it from falling and breaking it and that was the thread that was connected to the damaged nacelle.

I never hung it up again.

During my first marriage, the Enterprise it was often times banished to some dark corner. Then it followed me to Germany where it rested on my desk in my room and was packed away in box full of foam for storage while I went down to the Gulf War.

Finally, it came home with me and has had a place in my office since.

It’s the oldest artifact from a long ago youth.

What will happen with it in the future? I hope one of my grandsons take it and treasure it. Jim Kirk and Chris Pike’s ship has been a steady companion for decades and has been a permanent feature in my life.

It would be a shame to see it discarded in the trash after I’m gone.