Tony Peters

love building model airplanes. There is something wonderful
about turning a flat drawing and bits of wood and tissue into a
three-dimensional sculpture that magically flies through the air.
For years I churned out model after model, hanging them wingtipto-
wingtip in my summer home and in my son’s bedroom.
Now that I am more or less retired, I have little time to
build. Those of you on the working side of Social Security will
scoff at this—I know I did—but most of my aging peers are
probably nodding in agreement.
Some time ago a neighbor—a retired building contractor—asked
me how I liked being retired and whether or not I was making lots of
new models. I told him how busy I was and how the days seemed to
slip like sand through my fingers, leaving me little time to build. He
thought about that for a moment.
“Put on more men,” he advised me.
This has become my geriatric cohort’s motto, but there is a better
solution to the embarrassment and boredom of showing up week
after week with the same tired models: a foam profile model.
These models have other advantages than quick and easy
construction: they are cheap (a personal favorite feature);
they’re sturdy (my MiG has survived countless collisions with
walls and table legs, was knocked out of the grasp of trees with
a wildly flailing pole, and even spent a rainy week in a tree as it
worked its way down to where I could get at it); and last but not
least, they look really neat.