The Model Planes and My Parents' Story

The Model Planes - made by my father, coin is quarter to show size

I was about two and a half, when I first remember my dad showing us the model planes. We were in the living room and my dad brought out this stainless steel round jar, with a nicely shaped top. Inside the jar were some tiny model airplanes, carved out of plastic. My dad had made these by hand when he was in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II.

He told us that they were not toys, but that we could look at them and hold them when he was with us.

I remember that we all loved the shiny, semi-transparent planes.

One related memory from about the same time, was one night my mom and dad sat down with me and told me a story. I am not sure if they had the steel jar with them at that time or not.

What they told me was that they used to go and visit two men. They tried to tell me where they were but I didn't understand. I remember they said that one of them decided to go with "them", and the other one didn't. He wanted to go back. I remember that my mother said that he couldn't go back because they were going to put him in prison. My dad said this was true, but he still wanted to go back so he could see his family again.

I was very young and had a hard time even asking the right questions to figure out the stuff I couldn't understand. They told me that the last time they saw the two men, that the man who didn't stay with them, gave my parents the jar and the badges inside. He had also written a diary, and wanted to give it to my parents, but my parents said they wouldn't let him.

I remember that I felt really sorry for the man, even though I didn't understand what happened to him and where he was being kept. I also never understood who was keeping him.

I was very confused about the prison part, because it sounded to me like the man was in prison when my parents went to see him, otherwise; why wouldn't he be allowed to go see his family?

Note: There is much more to this story that continues on. My recollection of my parents telling me the story is quite fuzzy compared to my memory of the first time my dad showed my brothers and I the model planes he kept in the jar. This is the only memory I have of my parents telling me about them visiting these men.

An Argument in the Night

I was about four years old when this happened. My parents sometimes had long arguments in the night after we went to bed. Because they talked so loud and sometimes shouted, we couldn't go to sleep. I remember that one night, they were arguing about something that related to me. This was something I heard and my brothers heard also. This was very unusual, because they mostly confronted us directly when they had problems with us.

I remember my dad saying to my mother, "Its not real. Its not real. It didn't happen." My mother was crying and kept arguing with him that it did happen. I also think I remember my dad saying that if my mother told people about this, that she would be placed in a mental hospital. It was certainly not clear to me what they were arguing about at the time, but I wonder if it somehow tied into the story they told me before about the two men. I remember that as we listened to this, that I felt guilty, like I had done something bad because I was somehow responsible for the problems that were happening in our family.