My dad collected HO scale trains before he was married. After he was married and had kids of course the trains thrilled us. And not just regular thrill. The trains put us right into an imaginary space. We'd see the trains at Christmas.
Fascinating how they got those little bitty trains to have so much detail when the larger train sets had less.
One fateful day around Christmas at an isolated radar site in the Pennsylvania mountains, my dad left a floor buffer untended. He wanted the floors to be the shiniest possible for the holiday, a value we did not comprehend. The machine was way to big for any child to handle. Nonetheless, Barry and I tried it. We climbed on top of it to ride it like a bronco. Sitting on top of the motor, Barry reached up to the switch and flicked it on and before he could turn it off again the machine suddenly ripped an arc across the already polished floor and tore off the leg to the table in the corner holding the Christmas tree and train set. The whole thing came crashing down onto us. The train spilled across the floor, thin glass bulbs broke by the dozens, tinsel was strewn across the room, train pieces and tree decorations were intermingled and broken and we freaked the f out. We scrambled to put it all back. But we were little kids. How good could we possibly get it? Repairing the table leg was completely beyond me.
Oddly, my story ends there. The spot where a memory of consequence is blank. I have no recollection of being punished for that. Maybe punishment didn't happen. Maybe we did put it all back and nobody noticed. And that's weird.
But at the last house I never saw the train set up. The interest was there but always only in idea form. Dad took us to a place where they sold all this stuff and he continued to collect pieces that he purchased from flea markets. I saw dozens and dozens of unopened boxes of train cars and pieces of model towns, pieces of nature to scale, material to create background, liquid plastic to make lakes, spray texture to create pastures, hundreds of little trees, miniature automobiles and trucks, tons of track, bridges and switches, enough stuff to open a store, but nothing was ever set up. Just collected. It took up a whole storage cabinet in the basement along with more boxes stacked to the side of it, fascinating all by itself and we wondered, "Man, this would make a fantastic scene if he ever got around to it." It would fill a whole room.
Barry wrote yesterday telling me that he gave the whole lot to a train enthusiast at his church.
And this whole time I thought it was already gone.
3 comments:
I'm thinking of the buffer as a tornado that ripped through your little train neighborhood and completely destroyed it. Some people wanted to rebuild the town but the will was never strong enough to do it. If my brother and I had accidentally wrecked the train world that our dad had worked so hard to create I doubt that he would have been able to do it all again.
Oddly, my story ends there. The spot where a memory of consequence is blank. I have no recollection of being punished for that. Maybe punishment didn't happen. Maybe we did put it all back and nobody noticed. And that's weird.
Not odd or weird. Feeling and thought need to be integrated to form a cohesive narrative. Also not likely the pair of you were able to put it all back so perfectly your father, a man attuned to the detail of the set wouldn't notice.
What does Barry remember about the aftermath?. Even if your dad did not respond with a tirade or actual consequence, it's hard for me to imagine someone who values a polished floor not noticing the disorder or damage done and feeling somewhat disheartened or disappointed. To a child, perceived disappointment in or from a parent is often harder to take than a barrage of words, an over-and-done physical punishment or a guilt reliving chore. However, the idea of riding a buffer may have intrigued him as well, resulting in a mix of feelings and thoughts for him too.
The long term approach by the two who took The Buffer Ride is curious, with one brother (the one who flipped the switch) holding onto the set well into adulthood and the other (along for the ride) losing track of what happened to the set, thinking it gone.
When children experience an adverse, unsettling or traumatic situation involving thoughts and feelings they're unable to own, reconcile or file away as part of a cohesive narrative, they tend to inwardly hold themselves accountable/responsible for what transpired (owning more than their part) or disconnect from what happened (let go of their part).
As train stories and wreckage go this is a good one.
I lost a crystal candlestick I liked and an expensive etched mirror to the rambunctiousness of boys who were not intending to do damage but ended up breaking them while goofing around, and I can still recall the disappointment I felt when that happened. Since then I've bought 5 replacement candlesticks, none of which are the same, in an attempt to complete the pair and have enjoyed using all six on special occasions. I also held onto the broken mirror for years, after bringing it to a glass shop and leaving it with the old guy there to see it could be fixed. When he died, they called to see if I wanted it back unfixed and I picked it up and left it sitting in our garage for a few more years, before making the final break and sending it to the dump.
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