Monday, November 26, 2007

The Ghosts of Christmas Past - Part 1

We had AWESOME toys when I was a kid. Lots of GUNS! Mattel was The Shit!


Real leather holsters...none of that molded plastic shit.


Even had a derringer hidden in the belt buckle for adolescent river boat gambling adventures!


These were REALISTIC GUNS! None of that orange plugged pussy crap that screams "I'M A TOY! I'M A TOY!" Because we were smart enough to know that you don't point toy guns at cops who have real guns. Nobody had to tell us that. Plus, we never really got into any sort of confrontations with law enforcement. We just played and had fun.


These toy guns had toy bullets that actually fired toy slugs from toy shells. It was AWESOME! I can't remember anyone who got their eye put out.


The bullets were propelled by Greenie Stik-M-Caps! Actual gunpowder-like explosive that smelled and smoked like real bullets.





We even had automatic weapons! Thompson sub-machine guns and snub-nosed 38 revolvers with shoulder holsters!


This is me defending my sister's honor with my fully locked and loaded Mattel Tommy Gun.


This is me with Tommy gun at the ready AND snub-nosed 38 shoulder holster ready to defend the entire family.


This is me in full dress Dick Tracy blues, fighting for truth, justice, and the American way.


Just like my dad...


...and my granddad (3rd on the right...white hat, white scarf).

10 comments:

Spyder said...

Cute kid!

Trelvix said...

Good one! While I never put anyone's eye out I did sort of shoot Neil Stephanson once when I was about 10.

Rawhide!

He lived and I came to feel bad about it eventually even though he was totally asking for it.

This post is spot-on and I'm glad to see someone celebrating the pre-pussification of America. Keep these memories alive or our civilization is doomed!

Great pictures too.

Nightmare said...

Please tell me those are your own toys and you still have them in their original boxes!! They must be worth a mint!

Happy In Bag said...

Nice shots! Circa '73, us neighborhood kids had epic BB gun battles. I'll never forget those tiny purple bruises.

Faith said...

Ok, how much do I love that little family shot of you next to your mom holding a baby, and your sister holding what appears to be a doll? A LOT, is how much I love it! You have a GUN hanging out in a little cute mom and her kids photo!! AWESOME! (Ok, a fake gun, but still. I love it!)

Toy bullets? It's a good thing they got rid of those before my brother came into the world. He would have found a way to make those more dangerous than they were supposed to be, I think.

FletcherDodge said...

Well XO, thanks to YOUR GENERATION for ruining it for everyone. YOUR GENERATION, with your hippies and your damn Ralph Naderses with your crusades to make sure the gubmint protects kids because the parents are too damn busy playing around in muddy fields, smokin' the marijuana and singin' kum ba yah, while the gubmint took over parenting duties on pain of lawsuit, protecting kids from making small mistakes that actually teach them things until they grew up and were unable to parent THEIR kids. Welcome to the world you created.

Anonymous said...

whoa emaw lays it on the line, perhaps in jest, but somewhere along the line we lost the innocence of little boys to play cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers, didn't we. I guess it's a generational thing. Don't touch don't tell. Don't hug in school or you're expelled.

Wonder where it will all end.

Cute pics, cute guy.

Ole Blue The Heretic said...

My nephews still have toy guns. We played Soldiers and Evil people over Thanksgiving holiday.

My sister makes me say Evil people as opposed to Communist, Islamofacsist, and Nazis etc.

We still had fun. Especially shooting their guns from the back of my jeep!

Next time maybe we can go fighting against the PC crowd. That reminds me. I need another cigarette.

Xavier Onassis said...

stink - Thanks! I never shot a kid (wanted to, tho..) but I did hit a kid in the nose with a boomerang and made him bleed. It was a lucky shot.

nightmare - Unfortunately, no. Those were all poached pictures. But I did actually own just about everything shown and lots more, at one time or another.

HIB - Are you crazy? You could have put someone's eye out!

faith - as I recall, the slugs had a range of about 6 inches and barely managed to fall out of the end of the barrel. It wasn't even the cap that propelled them. The cap was just there for "special effects".

emaw - It weren't the hippies what created this world. It was the money-grubbin', greedy, conservative lawyers makin' money off the backs of the down-trodden under the orders of the Ruling Elite what had their hob-nailed boots on the throats of the working class! Now, quit bogartin' that joint and give me a hug!

travel - We played cowboys and indians and we played "army". Playing army was my favorite. Our dad's would take us to Army Surplus stores (WWII had just ended 15-20 years prior) where we could get real, honest-to-god, canvas web belts, hollowed out hand grenades, back packs, REAL HELMETS, canteens, the works. Combined with our uber-realistic Mattel tommy guns, we were a marauding bunch of eight year old Vic Morrow's from "Combat!" In fact, the highest rank anybody could be was Seargent. We didn't need no stinking officers! FYI, dirt clods make great hand grenades!

Ole blue - we mostly fought krauts and japs. That was still OK in 1963.

Joe said...

"the pre-pussfication of America" Damn, Stinkbait do you not hit the nail on the head.
I liked the Star Trek phaser that shot plastic disks. We shot the hell out of each other. And, the neighborhood cats that came to poop in our flowers. We also played guns on a regular basis. Outside, in the sunshine. Like God intendned kids to play in. What the hell happened, our kids are all pussified