My earliest childhood memories come from a post-World War II environment. My toy soldiers were lead and my toy tanks were tin, made in Japan from tin cans discarded by the U.S. military occupation forces. When they broke you could turn them inside out and read the labels on some of them. Spam tins were popular.
As I got older, wartime shortages began to disappear and we got things made out of rubber, like the heads on kids’ dolls, which had previously been made of some kind of plaster composition that smashed when dropped, or accidentally thrown against the headboard in the crib. This was how Bosco, my stuffed monkey, was done in. My cousin showed me how this worked. As you may have noticed, I have never forgiven him for this.
As we got older, we discovered the glamorous violence of the Old West. We all had our gun sets. The most desirable was a double action revolver, big enough for Dirty Harry, that had individual cartridges that you could take apart and insert a cap into, then load and fire. The fact that it took about five minutes to load the six cartridges that came with the gun was a minor inconvenience. (Note: Although movie cowboys routinely clocked each other with their gun barrels and shook it off, it doesn’t really work that way.)
Which reminds me, in those days kids did not automatically get every new toy that hit the market. When we were a little older, we could save our 25-cent allowances, denying ourselves the pleasure of a Pepsi and a Baby Ruth during the week, until we scraped together enough to buy that $5.95 Ideal Stage Coach with horses that you hitched to the coach and plastic-leather reins and a rifle in the boot with a driver that actually held the reins. The doors opened and shut and you could stuff things inside. Basically, what you had here was a doll house for boys.
It was hard to save that much, so we learned to ask for money for our birthdays. With a couple of birthday dollars and a two-month advance on our allowance, it was just possible to save up enough. Having acquired this magnificent piece of Cowboynalia, I now settled down to enjoy. Unhitch the horses. Hitch up the horses. Put the driver in the driving box. Get the rifle from the boot and force it into his hand. Now take it out and place the whip there, then the reins. Open the doors and close the doors. Hmmm. Now what?
Gee. I could sure use a Pepsi and a Baby Ruth about now.
Bill Abrams continues to keep hold of the reins to his coach, however small, which is parked alongside his homestead in Pine Plains.
