Eclectic Lego Villages Decorate

Library’s Children’s Room

By Dottie Evans

Take an imaginative 7-year-old to a neighborhood garage sale, give him $5 to spend, and you never know what might happen –– especially if Uncle Steve has anything to say about it.

Four years after the fact, Lynda and Don Gies of North Valley Road are still amazed at the spontaneous burst of creativity shown by their son Donny when he came home from a tag sale carrying a box filled with hundreds of Legos –– the child-size, brightly-colored plastic building “bricks” that have preoccupied two generations of budding engineers since they were first introduced 40 years ago.

“It was a long time ago [in a galaxy far away?] that I started building these things,” said young Donny Gies on Tuesday, January 17.

He and his father stood alongside Marie Walker in the Booth Library Children’s Department in front of a glass case, admiring Donny’s Lego creations that were arranged across three shelves alongside several Lego instruction books and catalogs.

Four years might, indeed, seem like a long time to an 11-year-old, because after Donny Gies began building his Lego villages, Lego hovercraft, Lego amphibious vehicles, Lego robotic rovers, Lego castles, Lego biplanes, Lego amusement parks, and his own eclectic Lego landscapes, he moved on to collecting Star Wars figures. Now, the Reed Intermediate School student has taken up basketball.

As the person on the Booth Library staff who helps organize the display cases for the Children’s Library, Ms Walker values Donny’s productivity and his broad range of interests.

“He’s already provided two Star Wars exhibits for us,” Ms Walker said, “so I asked him if he had anything else.”

The answer to that question can be seen today in the Children’s Room. Donny Gies’s Lego Display will stay up until the middle of February.

But what about Uncle Steve?

“He inspired me,” said Donny.

Apparently, when others had said he shouldn’t bother about the old box full of old “used” Legos, his Uncle Steve said “No way, give it a try.”

So he did.