REMARKS: MY TOYS WERE SIMPLER -- BUT COULD BE JUST AS VIOLENT!

I've recently taken some razzing in the Yahoo Historic Preservation Radicals Club I belong to. The founder of that club is also a member of my own "Tweeners" Club, for those born in the 1960s (beTWEEN the Baby Boomers and Generation X). In that club I mentioned building structures out of the little red snap-on plastic bricks & Lincoln Logs as a child, then taking great delight in smashing them to smithereens with my electric train set.

Of course my friend took great pleasure in pointing this out in the preservation club. I assured him (and the others) that none of those structures I made and destroyed were around long enough to qualify for the National Register! Those were some of my fondest childhood memories, though.

My bedroom was frequently filled with my train set, brick and log structures, cars, tractors, etc. Toy soldiers also lined the floor and the railroad demolitions were usually part of some war being fought by myself and the current visitor -- most frequently my cousin Mike from St. Louis.

I have briefly mentioned the Christmas of 1968 before, when I got the GI Joe jeep. These GI Joe figures were also well-used and well-loved. I started out with "Joe," a blond-haired soldier, who (looking back) had a rather gruesome scar on his cheek. I added a dark-haired soldier whom I named "Bill." Later the bearded commander arrived and took charge. All three initially spoke, via a cord from the chest or neck. Each eventually lost his "voice."

A few similar figures of other brands later joined them, including a black solider I named "Eddie" (after my brother's Army buddy of the same name, who was the first adult African-American I had known). Things got interesting when Gen. George A. Custer and some of HIS action figures joined the crew.

The Custer figures were totally different form the GI Joes, but on the same scale. As the photo indicates, they still pose amicably together -- even if poor Joe's homemade shirt is a bit mouse-chewn. (Barbie mothers weren't the only ones who made their kids "doll clothes!") The western figures were solid plastic and had somewhat less fluid arm and leg movements. Still, Ole Yellow Hair could comfortably take the shotgun seat in the GI Joe Jeep and had no trouble running the outfit. (I can't recall if a horse came with him or not; in any event, the jeep was more his style , anyway).

With Custer I had one cavalry soldier and a black-clad goateed gunfighter. I can't recall now if the gunfighter was an ally or an enemy of the solders. Since they had to have SOMEONE to fight, I'm assuming it was the latter. The jeep, by the way, came with a rocket-launcher, which fired a a missile-shaped plastic rocket several yards in the air. this, naturally wasn't overly appreciated by mothers or household pets.

On a few occasions my cousin Karen stayed with us. We wound up merging GI Joes and Barbie dolls a few times. She even insisted on them going on dates. I guess if we were playing that today, the object of the game would be to avoid a harassment suit or court-martial hearings

That fraternizing with the dolls may have helped prepare the soldiers for their retirement years. After my mom moved twice in the nineties, she dug the old soldiers out a toy box and added them to her new, ever-growing figurine collection. Today George, Joe, Bill and a couple of others stand on Mom's shelves in the midst of Barbies, Kewpies, angels and various assorted figures. As one can see, the soldiers are still in fairly good condition -- even if Joe's clothes aren't.

One of Custer's two soldiers carefully hides the fact that he lost his left hand somewhere over the years. Bill's brown hair amazingly has turned a virtual gray color, Joe's boots don't match and the unit has only one 1870s style rifle among the men. Then again, Mom's doll shelves seem pretty secure. I don't think she'll need to dig out the jeep and the rocket launcher any time soon.

I don't know how kids today would react to a room full of 1970 toys. Battlin' Tops, Fang Bang, Ker-plunk, Spyrograph, Jalopy Showdown, The Green Ghost Game and the board version of Battleship were all delightful. I don't remember the ones aimed at girls as well, although I remember The Dating Game being popular. A few have survived or been brought back. I've seen Operation, Etch-a-Sketch, Hot Wheels and Pez dispensers on shelves in recent years.

I guess today a 10-year-old would be more interested in putting on a head piece and knocking down brick buildings in a locomotive, via a virtual reality game, than by taking time to hook together the numerous pieces of track and building a brick building block by block, only to flatten it moments later. And, come to think of it, there probably IS a video game called "Lacerating Locomotives" or something to that effect, out there on the market even as we speak.

Times -- and toys -- have changed, as parents no doubt can attest to this week. I don't think today's kids have any more fun with theirs then we had with ours, though. And who knows: I may STILL find a use for the skills I developed as a youngster. After all, one never knows when some heinous enemy will sneak in and build brick buildings in the middle of our valuable railroad tracks!