FLORENCE, Ky.-- By helping save lives by day, and playing with LEGO® bricks at night, one Northern Kentucky firefighter is living his dream. He’s also spreading his passion for his hobby to others.
54-year-old Rodney Dicus calls the LEGO® workshop in his basement his “organized disaster.”
Yes, LEGO®, the plastic bricks many have played with as a kid, or maybe, their kids play with now. Dicus said he loves them because builders don’t have to glue them together or use any kind of adhesive. When they fall off the table and break apart, they can be put back together.
LEGO means "Play Well" in Danish. Dicus said he also appreciates the morals and ethics of the company.
It’s not a cheap hobby. His collection is insured for $400,000 replacement value, but needs to be taken to $500,000.
Dicus has a lot of bricks. His collections fill storage units and trailers. He said they’re just as fun to play with as an adult. And he’s always thinking about his next project. Dicus said he loves that he can create anything, and he pretty much has.
“There’s 10, 12, 14 projects working. Harry potter right now is a priority, so my power plants are put on hold,” Dicus said. “It started when I was about seven years old, which is actually when LEGO® started coming into the United States.”
Through high school and college, Dicus started to drift away from his hobby. But his mom, who shares his love of LEGO®, intervened in 2000.
“My mom moved in with us, brought our collection at that time with her, and there were three stacks of six of these, and a bunch of sets,” Dicus said, pointing toward his shelves upon shelves of bricks (600 units), which take up almost every inch of wall space in his workshop. “There’s a wonderful relationship there. There really is, and she still builds and sorts every day, almost.”
The collections his mom brought were mostly the LEGO® city, castle and pirate collections, which Dicus said are by far he and his mom’s favorite themes.
“And it just grew from there. In 2001, I was introduced to that thing called eBay. So I started buying, selling, trading all over the United States.”
Dicus started traveling around the country, seeing big shows and hearing about something called a LUG, or a LEGO® User’s Group. Then it became time to expand the hobby.
“Mom looked at me and said let’s get out of the basement. So we formed a club,” Dicus said.
Dicus is the president and founder of the Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana LEGO® Users Group.
The nonprofit group started with eight original members. After 12 years, the group is now up to 50 members. Like Dicus, they’re people passionate about building with the little bricks. They even share their creations with others at shows. Members range from 19 to 80 years old.
The group now has a junior division that meets at the Erlanger library
“Mom and I, when we decided this, we just wanted it to be an extended family. And that’s what it’s really become,” Dicus said. “If you can think about something in your head, if you know the elements, you can build it. We don’t deter anybody from their ideas.”
LEGO® isn’t the only thing that drives Dicus.
He’s also a firefighter paramedic for the Hebron Fire Protection District. In Jan., he will have been a paramedic for 19 years.
Fighting fires, rushing people to hospitals, and building Harry Potter sets are maybe not the most natural combination people would think of, but Dicus said they fit together perfectly like LEGO® bricks.
“So many people say to me being a firefighter paramedic, oh don’t you see a bunch of bad stuff? And we do, but at the same time, it also keeps my faith in people, because I see a lot of good stuff as well. So it’s real easy to do both of these,” he said. “There are times that I’ve built at night when we have our free time.”
No matter what it is, Dicus said people should do what makes them happy.
“Society today, I think, has lost sight of making time for what’s important to you. At the end of the day, each one of us needs to have ourselves as a priority. Then we can take care of our families, then we can take care of our co-workers, then we can take care of the public,” he said. “No matter what your hobby is, somebody else out there is probably doing it. Unless you reach out there and share that, you’re not going to know.”
Dicus said he’s proud of how inclusive his group is.
One of his good friends was losing his sight and the use of his hands inspired Dicus to start making Braille LEGO® sets.
The OKI Lug’s next show is at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center on Halloween weekend.