LEGO® Story #16
I spent my childhood as many other kids – building with LEGO® a lot. I think it was my favorite toy.
Since I had a few health problems early on, I was not that active as other kids at my age. So my favourite past-time was LEGO®.
I got older and maybe in my father’s eyes I should have had other interests beside LEGO®. So my dad told me to pack it away – and the plan became to give it away to the child hospital ward where I had been a few times. After this happened, I felt for a long time that my dad didn’t want me to play with LEGO®.
You may think that my LEGO® Dark Ages came – the time where I had to quit playing with LEGO® and find other interests. But no, my LEGO® building passion went into Technic sets. It was more a young adult type of LEGO®. I only bought large sets that I liked and built – and then would hide them away in the basement.
Around 2012, I found myself at a LEGO® crossroads. Should I keep building the new Technic sets or quit building LEGO® altogether? I think the one thing preventing me from quitting were the Modular House sets. I bought the Pet store and I was hooked. Oh how I missed that little brick – my love for LEGO® was back.
And the LEGO® that was supposed to be given away, was still in my basement.
So in late 2012, I found my way to the local LEGO® User Group (LUG). They had an event coming up soon in Trondheim, a city in another part of my country. Having never been to any LEGO® events, I decided to attend. I didn’t have the courage to tell my father I was going to a LEGO® event. I had a feeling that it would not end well, so I just told him ‘I’m going to Trondheim’. But when I posted the LEGO® event on Facebook, my dad saw it – and the cat was out of the bag. But, to my surprise, he took it well and told me that I was more than old enough to decide my own hobbies. E even offered to give me a lift to LEGO® events!
And then I took an extra step. Some colleagues at work knew about my LEGO® hobby.
One day in 2014, I got an idea to turn some of my work into a LEGO® model. I was servicing the rent bike racks. So, I made a model based on that in LEGO® – a rack, and the two service cars.
I later showed a picture of this to my manager – a few moments later it was posted to everyone in the company. I was not that happy about that but OK – at least I could finally tell everyone about my hobby.
This is my trip from packing my LEGO® away in a basement… to becoming a proud Adult Fan of LEGO®. Today I have fun with LEGO®, building my own creations and collecting sets. I no longer have worries about my father. My mother loved LEGO® from the start and my father learned to accept it.
LEGO® helped me in so many ways. And that’s why, still today, it is my favorite toy in the whole wide world.
Petter L – Norway