The proper name for it was the Wish Book. But we weren't much on the proper over here when I was a kid. I’m sitting as I type this, in the same room…in the same spot where my sister and I would fight like cats and dogs over the catalog till my mama intervened. The most efficacious stun-gun in her arsenal from just before Thanksgiving till Christmas Eve was “Santa Claus is watching you.” That simple phrase would have us compliant in a nanosecond.
The Christmas catalog was our Google search. It was our Internet. It was the congregation of the bits and pieces that we’d seen on Saturday morning television ads and at Woolworths and Kress on Evans Street…an amalgamation of options. I suppose it was intended to facilitate trade-offs and focus so that young’uns could tell mama and daddy exactly what to round up for Santa to drop off at the house. That particular intent was lost on me but then again, Ritalin and Adderall weren’t standard pediatric unguents in a Florence, South Carolina of 1969. And when the big book would arrive in the mail, I was riveted. It would prime my imagination with options from alternating pages of grayscale newsprint and in-your-face color depictions of any and everything I knew I wanted. And it offered things that I’d never seen before but suddenly realized that I couldn’t live without.
The 1969 edition of the holy book of goods depicted things that I suppose I received over probably three or four Christmases. Seems like the categories of toys I coveted had staying power and most were generally focused on death and destruction or good over evil. The good over evil thang was huge come to think of it.
GI Joe…far and away my favorite childhood toy. I still enjoy reading about the Hassenfelds up at Hasbro in Pawtucket Rhode Island rolling the dice on this one. Literally betting it all on this game-changer. “Boys won’t play with dolls…nor should they.” Ok, it’s an “Action Figure.” And my neighborhood buddies and I would dig trenches and set up battle scenes and then blow it all up with M-80’s. Yep, M-80’s and Cherry Bombs. There was nothing delicate and baby doll about how we rained chaos on GI Joe and his comrades.
But before I had a GI Joe, my mama unwittingly secured for me a soldier named “Stony”. Stony was a feeble attempt to compete with GI Joe and I’m pretty sure they launched in tandem. I don’t fault my mama for choosing Stony over Joe. She loved me—still does—and wouldn't intend to inflict undeserved emotional distress upon me. But it happened. I’ll leave the Stony v. Joe story for now. It deserves its own blog post. Seriously.
Before we leave GI Joe, take a gander at this high-tech 1960's teaser above.
I wasn't much on science fiction and space fantasy but one year Moon McDare was a home run for me. There were several other companies that attempted to compete with Hasbro in the action figure category and McDare, I think, was made by Gilbert. Stony and the Johnny West series were courtesy, I think, of Marx.
I had a brief go with the Wild West stuff but abandoned it quickly for my stalwart GI Joe...stuff.
And of course "Geronimo started it"... Major Matt Mason was pretty cool and I remember stringing up the jet ski like space scooters that Mason and his team rode…in my case…right here in Galaxy 69—my mother’s living room. “Billy Blastoff?” Please. Seems like he went on to make films—of a certain genre.
Here...get to know Major Matt Mason courtesy of YouTube. Combat Gear. A couple of episodes of Rat Patrol or Combat was all the fodder we needed to roam the neighborhood in search of Nazis and (sorry…it was Florence-1969) and Japs. But since this was at the height of Vietnam, we soon ended up at Mangum’s Army-Navy Store on Dargan Street, procuring the genuine goods. Ten bucks and a station wagon ride courtesy of somebody’s mama would assure a head-to-toe authentic army gear kit-out at Mangum’s.
Bottom of the left page…the Johnny Seven. Folks, words cannot convey the excitement manifest in this one weapon. This one…do all…kill all…protect all device that would have rendered Rambo cowering behind Pudgy Burgess’s mama’s Vista Cruiser station wagon…begging for mercy. Eight dollars and forty-four cents is nothing to pay for that level of security. Shut up.
I mean really. What kid wouldn't want the Johnny Seven after seeing this top secret-classified television commercial update on the J-7 capabilities?
Battle Ground Europe and the Battle of Fort Apache. Not that you care, but these extruded plastic monochromatic “army men” were the death knell for hand painted lead soldiers. The reasoning (other than the fact that lead tends to lower the I.Q. of kids…an already pervasive problem in the South Carolina of my youth) was simple. A kid could get a hundred plastic ones in all guises/poses/iterations of action for what ten lead ones cost. And I had millions of the plastic ones. LFG and I still find one now and then when walking the grounds of my youth.
"Capacity crowd" my a_s. I only have one story to tell about a rip-off. Stony wasn’t a rip-off…just an innocent mistake by my mama. But the NFL Big Bowl Electric Football set was a flat out rip-off. No other way to put it. You set up your teams and hit the “go” button on this electrically mediated contest. The intent was, I reckon, for the vibrating surface of the field to send the players in their proper directions. It was a hoax folks. The players vibrated their way in every direction but where they were supposed to go. There was NO control over them and therefore NO fun associated with this game. I abandoned it within an hour. Funny, about six months later I saw my Aunt Tootie sitting on it and giggling.
The bikes. Spyder death traps and my buddies and I HAD to have them. And we did.
I’ll close this reminiscence with a page from the “these things will kill you” department. I’m not an NRA member and I realize that we no longer live in the world of my youth. But I think every little boy, and little girl for that matter, needs to at least once, shoot a tin can with a BB Gun.
Oh, and one other thing as I sit here in the neighborhood of my youth. There are still tons of kids living on the adjacent streets and the one I grew up on. By seven a.m. on Christmas morning and for the ensuing week off from school, the kids of my youth were swarming the streets and lawns, reveling in the excitement of Christmas toys, bikes and games. In today's online, electronic gadget and gamer world, the same streets are abandoned.
Onward…at home in Florence. Writhing in pain and awaiting the verdict on having the root canal done here or when I get back to Virginia on Friday. No better place to be when in pain than at home with your mama.
ADG the Second and Lady LFG the Only.
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