We continue with my trial run of Share Your Nostalgia, an idea suggested to me by some fellow bloggers. The topic for this feature is “The Toy of Your Life.” Was there one toy that you considered the “best?” When you think of yourself as a child, what is the toy that immediately pops into your mind? What was the toy that you brought to Show and Tell or took with you everywhere?
Today, we shine the spotlight on Christian. Christian is another one of the great music lovers I’ve connected with here on WordPress. His blog is loaded with all kinds of musical writings. He has a love for 1960’s and 1970’s music, but his blog is far from just those decades. You can check him out at Christian’s Music Musings: https://christiansmusicmusings.wordpress.com/
Take it away, Christian –
When fellow blogger Keith (Nostalgic Italian) reached out to me the other day to see whether I’d like to participate in his call for contributions about the “Toy of Your Life,” I immediately accepted. Then I thought, ‘oh, oh, what am I going to write about?’ After all, I really can’t point to one specific object that was THE toy. As such, I decided to take a bit of liberty and write about my (childhood) obsession with toy cars.
I remember my mom often told me that when I was a toddler back in Germany, I would always walk around carrying stuff in my hands. This included all kinds of pens in different colors and a Tonka-type plastic toy truck. At some point, I guess by the time of first grade, I had discovered Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars. I couldn’t get enough of them. And I found an ingenious way to increase my supply!
During much of my early childhood, I had blood anemia and needed to take iron in liquid form – yuck, not a medicine I can recommend! The condition also required frequent blood
monitoring. This meant my mom had to take me our primary care doctor where they always stuck my finger to collect blood.
I was very afraid of the little needles the assistant used to take my blood and always made a big scene. On one such occasion, out of despair, my mom once told me if I would be brave, she would reward me with a Matchbox car after the doctor’s visit. While I still dreaded the needles, that sounded good to me!
And so I began accumulating Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars. I played with them all the time, alone and with my best friend who I met in second grade and who I’m still fortunate to call my best friend to this day. At some point, we began building roads in the sandbox that was in the backyard of his house and taking our cars there – safe to assume a few of them got buried forever!
At some point as I grew bigger, so did the toy cars. Matchbox and Hot Wheels were out, and I started collecting cars that were about twice the size of a Matchbox car. I remember one of the brands was called Siku. One of the cars was a BMW 630CSI like the one pictured below, though I believe mine was silver.
During my early teenage years, I started collecting even bigger toy cars (1:18 scale) by Schuco and other toy car makers. Those cars had many more details and looked way more sophisticated. One, a red Mercedes 280SL convertible even had a working steering wheel. I also had a red Porsche 911 (still my favorite sports car to this day!) that looked similar to the below model, though it wasn’t a Targa.
While I kept my bigger cars on display in my room well into my late teens, once I started getting my first guitar and taking lessons, guitars became my new toy of interest, and the toy cars on the shelves started collecting dust.
While I’m older now (at least on paper!), I will say my fascination for toy cars has never entirely disappeared. When my son was a toddler and the Pixar movie Cars came out, it didn’t take much to convince papi (as he usually called me) to start collecting die-cast models of Lightning McQueen, Tow Mater, Doc Hudson or Sally Carrera. In fact, oftentimes it felt papi was more excited than his son!
Even to this day when I happen to spot toy cars in the pharmacy, I sometimes stop and glance to see what kind of makes and models they have. If I were a kid, I’m sure I’d like some them, especially muscle cars.
Since I’m a music blogger, I can’t wrap up this post without some music. As such, I’m leaving you with three car/driving songs, including one titled Matchbox Cars, though it’s not about toy cars but real cars looking like Matchbox cars from the 52nd floor of a skyscraper – but, hey, close enough!
Deep Purple/Highway Star (1972) – perhaps the ultimate driving song!
Golden Earring/Radar Love (1973) – another contender for best driving song!
Coot/Matchbox Cars (2012) – from the eponymous debut album of this New Orleans-based rock band who are completely new to me – I guess they passed the audition!
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 