I bought a comic from 1970 the other day and found this ad for Big Jim's pack inside it.
Big Jim and the pack were action figures my brothers and I played with a growing up.
I normally played with Warpath because I always played the Indian. Chad had Dr. Steel and I can't remember if Brett had The Whip or Big Jim. Maybe both?
These were cool action figures. When you bent their arm, in the muscle flexing position, their biceps actually flexed!
Warpath had a bow that actually shot arrows. The others had a karate action arm that would chop when you pushed a button in their backs. This also made the crack their whips or throw the boomerang.
The other cool things about these guys was that the bottoms of their boots had a paw print on them that would leave a track in the dirt where they had walked. (More like after you shoved them in the ground to make a paw print)
I think that is Chad in the middle fighting over the swing.
He has the same color hair as Chad and the boy is wearing Chads crazy pants but his face looks a little different. See what I mean?
I am pretty confident that that is my hind end at the left of the picture though.
The chain is twisted and I have my chest on the swing seat.
As a general rule I hate and have always hated to be dizzy.
Peer pressure and youth would win out from time to time and I would give it a shot. If I were gonna get dizzy or have the potential to be dizzy I would prefer to have it happen on the swing. I was in control of the swing and could stop myself at any
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Swings were great fun. It was the closet thing to flight as a kid. Swing as high as you could and free fall back down, rise again and fall back in reverse.
Sometimes I was an astronaut experiencing weightlessness as the chain went slack and for a slight moment I hung in the middle of the air, weightless.
Other times I was in the army and the swing was my parachute. At my elementary school we had a cloth-rubbery type swing that hugged you between the chains. This was perfect for parachuting. I would swing as high as I could and while in the full back position and hovering ever so slightly I would jump out of the seat.
That is right. I, and my friends, would jump out of the swing just before inertia pulled you forward again. So while at the height of your swing you would push out on the chains giving you the slack you needed and jump out. As you fell back forward and down the swing would go up behind you ever so slightly. Time this perfect and you would catch the swing in your arm pits and grab hold of the chain just like a soldier hanging from a parachute.
Next came the tricky part. You had to pull your feet in front of you to "Land" your chute or you would be dragged across the ground. No good soldier wanted to be drug across the ground. Land it right soldier! My knees still show the evidence that this soldier missed his landing a few times.
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Swings were great to jump out of in the forward direction too. We went for distance and not height in this competetion. We would take turns standing to watch for distance and then mark the farthest jump with a stick. This event usually ended with some sort of injury for someone. Ankles, legs and tailbones were prone be suffer. Occasionally someone would get stuck in the swing and be dragged backward and suffer the fate of a bad soldier landing incorrectly. Ouch!
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Last time I tried to swing it made me feel dizzy so I quit. :(
In our family there are quite a few birthdays this month.
Chad's birthday is tomorrow. So happy Birthday Chad. But lets go back to 1978 and see what my Dad saw then.
Dana, Kurt and David are over for Chad's birthday party. Brett and I snarfing some pizza and trying to see what presents Chad got.
The first thing I spot is a Luke Skywalker action figure. Here he is in all his preopened glory. The coolest thing with this figure was the light saber. It would slide out of his arm, ready for battle. It didn't stay straight long though. Battles with Darth Vader or whoever else was nearby saw to that.
I also see the bottom half of some other packaging on the table. There is another slide that reveals what this toy was so we will wait.
Same paryt but from a different angle.
I see me reaching for the toys. Kurt to my right and Dana to my left. I don't know who the kid is right next to Chad.
Lets see what I am after.
A model truck with a Hulk decal on the side. Chad did a great impression of the Hulk back then. He had some short pants and would run into the room and growl. He then would bend over, flex his muscles and then tear his shirt off and throw it across the room. He would flex and growl again and then run off in slow motion. It was perfect.
Looks like a 45 rpm record of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is laying on the table under the Hulk truck.
There is an alien next to these toys. This is what was in the other packaging that we saw in the other slide. It was a "Creatures From Other Worlds" character. These were Mego knock offs that were out in the market to capitalize on the "Star Wars" craze. Here is one still in its packaging. There is an article on them HERE too.
I was trying to read Chad's button, which probably said "Kiss me I am a Leprechaun" or something, when I noticed the Grape Ape wrapping paper.
Here is the intro to the Grape Ape show for those of you who never saw it and for the rest of us to remember it.
More of the "Creatures From Other Worlds" packaging.
I also see that we had some original Pepsi Throwback sitting in the corner. If you haven't tried Pepsi Throwback you need to, if you can find it now. I thought the idea was to sell stuff? If something sells out replace it. Stupid limited time release stuff. It truly was a time machine in a bottle. One taste and it was the seventies again.
I also see Mom's apple head guy on the shelf.
Mentioned before HERE. Same party but a different picture.
I also spotted a stained glass raccoon that was hanging in the window. This stained glass was based off my Mothers styling of a raccoon that she painted often. HERE and HERE are examples of her work. She must have traded something with an artist friend for it.
We have had a couple of busy weeks as I am sure you have too. Here is a brief review of our Christmas.
We had a progressive dinner with Elaine's family.
My nieces and nephew entertained us at their home where we had appetizers.
We went to our house for the main course.
We then finished up at Elaine's parents house with desert.
Elaine's Dad read part of the Christmas story at each house.
A few days before Christmas Levi asked his girlfriend, Hope, to marry him. Thankfully she said yes and they came to our house so we could congratulate them.
Elaine welcomes or new addition to the family.
The ring!
Here is the happy couple.
Christmas Eve found us at my parents house and it can be seen HERE in a smile box that my Mom created.
Christmas morning at our house and we wake up to our tradition orange rolls. I still haven't fixed the oven so Elaine made them in the toaster oven.
I was tagged at the blog Yesterville Toy Room to list my top ten favorite childhood Christmas toys. I ranked these by how much I played with them and or thoroughly enjoyed the toy. So here they are in order.
#1. The aluminum saucer sled!
We wore these out. Great present and they lasted for years even after putting multiple dents in them. #2 Super Toe
This is a toy that we played with and played with. I think we played by the rules for a couple of hours and then we played a horse style game that we made up from then on.
Very durable toy. #3 Jolly Rodger Pinball Machine
This was such a total surprise on that Christmas morning.
Atari was around then but to have an actual pinball machine at home was awesome! We also got a couple of albums that year so we stacked them up on the stereo and played pinball all Christmas day. And the next. And the next. And the next.
#4 K-Tel Fun Skis
Great toy. Little pieces of plastic that you stood on a skied down the hill. We never even broke a bone.
#5 Radio Controlled Batmobile
It was my first radio controlled car and it was the Batmobile! Double goodness! I still have this toy but mine is not in as good as shape as the one in this picture.
I kinda got the radio control thing out of my system with this car. Never wanted another one.
#6 Ghost Gun
We sat in the closet under the stairway and blasted ghosts for hours. You put a piece of paper in the gun that projected a ghost onto the wall. When you shot at the ghost a hole would appear on the projection and the paper. Very fun. #7 AM FM Radio
Grandma and Grandpa White got all us grand kids our very own radio one Christmas. Most of the stations were AM then. The cool station was WIFE AM in Indy at the time. Because I had this radio I was there when FM took over. The cool station then was WKIS Kiss 99 FM.
#8 Ricochet Racers
I don't think this one lasted very long but it was fun. You loaded cars in a shotgun type shell and then aimed and launched them at each other. Crash!
#9 The Magic Hat
I wanted this so bad one Christmas but alas it was not under the tree. I know I had asked for it and it alone that year. I had shown Mom the picture in the Sears and JC Penny's catalog and still didn't get it.
We went to my Uncle Georges late Christmas day and low and behold Uncle George and Aunt Pearl had gotten it for me. I immediately amazed them with my magic abilities.
#10 Billy Blastoff
One of the first toys I remember playing with and thinking cool. This was probably around 1969. He walked and operated other equipment when you plugged them into him.
The food spread in 1979! My Grandma on the left followed by my Mom's sister Carol. Grandpa is at the head of the table and Aunt Loraine is on the right.
I hope you have a nice Thanksgiving and for all you kids who aren't allowed to sit at the grownups table I hope you have a fun cousin to entertain you.
Like my cousin Dee Dee! I noticed a toy laying on the hearth guarded by a rabbit.
A Fisher Price movie!
You can see other posts about this great toy HERE and HERE.
My Dad liked photography as a hobby and his family made for interesting subjects to capture on film or should I say slides.
There aren't many pictures with him in them so I titled this blog "What my Dad saw".
The rear view mirror header I think summes it up well. I remember Dad saying "I am gonna take a picture of what I see every time I look in the mirror".
This is my families history, thanks for coming and enjoy.
I bought a comic from 1970 the other day and found this ad for Big Jim's pack inside it.
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