The greatest day of my young life:
This is mid-late 1970s.
My cousin Ronnie lived a couple hours away. I saw him maybe once a year. We’d go visit.
He was approaching his teens, but he still had this awesome collection of Mego superhero dolls. Batman (removable mask), Aquaman, Spider-Man, you name it*.
I loved them. I didn’t have any of my own at home.
One day, I’m four, maybe five years old. It’s summer. It’s a long day. it’s the kind of boring, nothing-happening day that just never ends. It goes on forever. Forever. Forever. It was still maybe the longest day of my life. Hot, dull summer day. Endless boredom.
The mail arrives. Moms calls me. She says there’s a package for me. Which mystifies me, because I’m a kid; I don’t get mail.
But there it is: a box wrapped in brown paper bag, maybe a foot wide-long-tall. With my name on it.
I open the box. It’s full of Cousin Ronnie’s dolls, maybe a dozen of them. For me. All for me. They are mine now. I don’t think I’ve ever been that excited in my life. I go through the roof, loudly singing songs of praise to my cousin.
Played with them until the legs came off. Batman’s mask disappeared and reappeared and disappeared and reappeared again. (The Joker may have been involved. Or maybe the dolls – this is before the term “action figures**” was in wide use – had their own mystical life. More on that in a minute. ** Mego had the chance to manufacture Star Wars dolls, but passed. And the competition ushered in a whole new era of action figures.)
One of worst days of my young life turned into one of the best days ever.
I credited my cousin until a couple years ago. He passed away a few years back, and his mom passed a couple years ago. I told his brothers that story at the second funeral. One said the dolls probably came from his mom – she hated to throw things away, and she knew I’d like them. Suddenly it occured to me that a 12-year-old wouldn’t have the wherewithal to put together a package like that and mail it. I’d always given him the credit. Now I split it between the two of them.
I still think about that package every single time I get the mail. A little thing can arrive out of the blue that can change your day and affect your life for years. One little gesture on your part, sharing something that isn’t necessarily a big deal to you… that can mean the world to somebody else.
So that scene at the end of Toy Story 3, where the kid passes along the box of beloved toys to the younger girl… yeah, I got a li’l misty-eyed.
Toys are magic.
* The score included Batman, Robin, Captain America, Aquaman, Spider-Man, Superman, the Riddler. I had Green Arrow and Iron Man at some point, not sure if they were part of the shipment.
