You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider ghostbc.
Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.
Quoted from zombywoof:I had the Cox gas powered van and the P51 Mustang. You were supposed to run them tethered, but yeah, I let mine loose, too. They did not survive my childhood, so I had to find pix on the 'net.[quoted image][quoted image]
I got this same Cox gas powered plane by selling greeting cards from an ad in the back of Boys Life mag. A few flights and Kapow!
Quoted from cottonm4:Pinewood Derby. The memories.
The 1st place trophy is mine. But this car was not mine and did not win anything. This car is a memory holder.
[quoted image]
I was 9 years old. Lived an a small town that got a Cubs Scouts Chapter up and running. My dad was the laissez fair type who stayed out of my way and let me learn stuff on my own. He got me a Pinewood Derby kit and some hand tools. I remember I got a coping saw, a wood rasp and a couple of other items.
I went to work. I did minimal amount of woodwork to the car body. I rounded off the front corners and made boat tail rear end. Put these two racers together and brush on some white paint and you would be looking at the Pinewood car I built.
[quoted image]
I glued the wheels and the nail axles on with so much clearance that the wheels wobbled. They wobbled a lot. As Pinewood Derby went, mine was ugly. Actually, it was fugly.
The car you see is my childhood best friend's car. His dad had gas station with all of the tools. His dad built this car. It was pretty and the wheels rolled straight. And he added some lead shot to a hole he drilled in the back of the car.
On race night, my mom and his mom took the both of us to the clubhouse for the race. My dad was probably down at the bar with his drinking buddies and my friend's dad was just plain anti-social. So, we were two 9 year old cub scouts and their mom's heading off to the races.
We enter the clubhouse with all of these other people and all of these other cars. It was obvious that most of the scouts' fathers had built their nice slick looking Pinewood Derby cars with their nice two-tone paint jobs. But I built my own. My mom told me to not be disappointed if I did not win anything thing.
Long story short: My ugly little car with the wobbly wheels kicked the asses of all those dad-built cars. I remember watching my car keep destroying car after car on the 2-lane racetrack. I don't remember anything other than that. I do not remember being handed the trophy. The only other thing I remember is that my best friend copped an attitude and would not speak to me on the ride home.
The next year my mom and dad and I moved to the big city 30 miles distant. My friend and I stayed in touch through the years. Once in the city, I made new friends who were into model car kits. And I went that direction. And one day, I thought I would try and clean up the appearance of my ugly little Pinewood Derby car; I wound up destroying a winner. Mom told me that one day I would be sorry I did that.
I kept the cheap plaster of Paris trophy in a box of my stuff that lived in my mom's attic for a long number of years. And eventually my mom's prediction came true. Some where in my late 40s-early 50s I started missing my winning Pinewood Derby car.
A number of years ago, after my friend's dad had died, his mom called the auctioneers to come and sell 40 years worth of accumulation and trash. I drove down to the same town to see what was selling. Laying on one table of auction junk laid my friend's Pinewood Derby car. I am the sentimental type and he is/was not. I mentioned the little car and he asked if I would like to have it. I said "yes".
And this is how I would up with the winning trophy and a losing car.
If I still had my little car I would make a wall display with the car and trophy. As it is, I keep this car and the trophy in a drawer. Some things you cannot get back.
Thanks for the memories.
I just told this same story to my wife about 10 min before reading your post. Crazy how exactly the same it was. Neighbor's Dad built his car, beautiful paint job, added lead to hole in bottom of car. Mine done completely by me, decided to not paint my car but stain it so the wood grain would show.
I did not win but beat the neighbor's Dad car.
Thanks for bringing that memory back.
I remember getting an old steal wheeled skate, ripping it apart and nailing it to the bottom of a piece of wood and meeting up at the smoothest street around our neighborhood . Hit a pebble , your going down. Then watching as we saw the first clay wheel's on a store bought skateboard still hit a big pebble your going down. To the smooth boards of today. This is my "Back in my day post"
Quoted from DCP:Here's one for you to try to identify...it's on my Seeburg Background Music player, the first 1000-song jukebox. The records are from about 1971. This tune is so familiar-sounding, but I can't place it. Almost sounds like a cigarette commercial or a TV theme. Any ideas?
Wow, just looked this thing up thinking where the heck are the 1000 songs as I have a Seeburg from the 50s that has a Selectomatic 100 which was a big deal cause it could play both sides of 50 45rpms. The Seeburg Background music player has special records that play at 16rpm and puts 20+ tunes on one record. It was a competitor to Muzak . Thanks Denny , ya learn something new everyday.
Just seeing if you can come through on another memory I have,(when I mentioned 45's on the back of cereal boxes you came up with the exact ones I remembered)
For some reason I remember just a few of the Model's I built as a 10 yr old or so (born in 63) so approx 71-74 . I build a series of chopper type motorcycles and a few cars. Of the choppers I think one was a standard long fork chopper maybe called "Grim Reaper" one of the others was a trike with a big bird on the sissy bar. The other one not related to the motorcycles is a station wagon called "Bad News" and I believe it was orange in color. Anyone?
Quoted from zombywoof:I dug up a few orange wagon model kits, but none with that name. Are you sure it wasn't "Bad Actor"? That was a pretty popular kit. I remember the Grim Reaper chopper, too, but I don't think I ever built that one. I mainly built cars, WWII aircraft, tanks, and warships.
[quoted image]
[quoted image]
[quoted image]
[quoted image]
[quoted image]
[quoted image]
[quoted image]
[quoted image]
[quoted image]
Wow, thanks for that. The Grim Reaper is the model I was thinking of. After seeing the station wagons I think the bad news was a 55-57 Chevy with the back windows made orange with the words bad news in black. Could just be my clouded memories.
Thanks again!
Quoted from mooch:I spent most of my money in high school on records. I was excited when I got something on colored vinyl. My first one was a red vinyl LP of Bloodshot by J. Geils Band. I also had a yellow 45 of We’re an American Band by Grand Funk. Both released in 1973.
[quoted image][quoted image]
My older brother had Bloodshot and it blew my mind when I first slid it out of the cover to see that red against the black and red of the sleeve. I recently found a red copy (the one iv'e had for years is black).
This got me thinking of the progression of early record player / stereo systems we all had and I would love to hear about your early systems. I remember going to a place in Trenton NJ called National Buyers Exchange as a 12yr old and just drooling over the stereo's they had (they were really all crap) but i thought they looked great with bubble shaped record player covers and built in 8 track plus the ability to record on 8 track (I was gonna record all my albums and sell them to kids at school). I saved up and bought the Sound Design brand and it served its purpose until I heard my older bros new system with all separate components ooh . The bottom end that came from that system blew my hair back like the old Maxell ad or was it JBL? The fact that you could take the speaker grills off and see the tweeter, midrange and base and maybe a port was new to us as well. My old Sound Design's speaker grills were glued on and under it all was 1 single 3" speaker. I soon upgraded to a set up close to my older brothers and the music has been great ever since.
Thanks for taking me back.
Have a great holiday everyone!
Quoted from TechnicalSteam:Rock'em Sock'Em robots.
I've always thought I could mechanize them for a Pinball machine or topper
[quoted image]
I used to own a 1950's Woodrail pinball called Knock out and it has a little boxing ring in the center. Do well and one of the boxers goes down. Pretty cool for the 50's.
Quoted from DCP:I still have my first "machine" - I was about 3 when I got it, so it was around 1960.
Picture taken 5 minutes ago.
Unrestored, HUO.
[quoted image]
Hey Denny, cant contact you through pinside mail anymore so send me your address if you could. Hope you guys have good holiday!
Quoted from girloveswaffles:Okay, here you go:
[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]
This looks familiar...
[quoted image]
Wow! I own Barracora and have never have seen this. They really stole a lot from this.
You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider ghostbc.
Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!
This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/what-were-your-favorite-childhood-toys?tu=ghostbc and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.
Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.
Lyons, CO