Toys in the Attic
I was a solitary kid. I used to spend most of my hours alone in my room playing with my toys. I didn't have a wide variety of toys, that's not to say I was deprived in any way, but what I liked I really liked. And I really liked were Hot Wheels, G.I. Joes and Tudor electric football.
At one point I had about 125 Hot Wheels and nearly 500 feet of track, not to mention accessories like trestles, ramps, loops, and devices for launching the cars around the track. My favorite thing to do was have drag races with the cars. Sometimes I'd line them up and race them randomly. Other times I'd divide them into categories, stock, modified, Indy style, etc., and race until there was winner in each category then race the winners against each other. Sometimes it was just fun to dream about the various cars. I never really had one overall favorite car but I gravitated toward the modified antique cars, like the Ice-T, the Paddy Wagon, and the Red Baron. The concept cars, like the Peeping Bomb, the Whipped Creamer, and the Splittin' Image, looked pretty cool.
I didn't have nearly as many G.I. Joes but I had at least one guy from each branch of the service, plus a German, a Russian, a Frenchman and a couple of Brits to boot. And, of course, I had a bunch of the accessories, extra uniforms, scuba gear, diving suits, helmets, guns, grenades, flack jackets, and even a motorcycle with sidecar. This was also my first experience in finding out that what looked cool on the commercials didn't always work out that way in real life. I had a hell of a time getting them to hold those guns. Even though I was growing up during the Vietnam War, the G.I. Joes were always fighting WWII.
Playing electric football was always a challenge. Anyone who's ever played it knows what I'm talking about. The guys never go where you want them to go, the football keeps falling off the quarterback's hand, and throwing a pass with any accuracy is nearly impossible. However, the great part was you could order the teams, in home or away jerseys, from Tudor and have your own mini-season. Playing electric football enabled the Saints to have a winning season long before it happened in real life. Besides the Saints, I recall owning the Baltimore Colts, Steelers, Cowboys, Cardinals, Browns, Eagles, Rams, Bears, Raiders, Chiefs and the Broncos. I know I owned some other teams, but I don't recall which ones they were.
Besides the big three above, I owned some board games -the coolest was one that glowed in the dark and had this little ghost in the center of the board that was the spinner- and marbles and cap guns and many of the other things that a boy couldn't live without. There was also this white, Lou "The Toe" Groza football that I believe belonged to Chuck but I ended up in my possession. Anyway, I had it autographed by Glen Cannon, who was a star safety at Ole Miss. Glen was drafted by the Saints and his pro career ended during training camp when he tore his Achilles tendon.
When I wasn't playing with my toys, I was either watching TV or I was at the movies.