My boys’ toys: Trip to barn brings back wave of memories

Have you ever wandered around the fruit trees on your own piece of land and spotted a pear that hadn’t been picked until it had reached its prime of sweetness?

I did a while back and plucked just such a pear, bit into it and savored it as the juice ran down my chin. With an outside faucet handy, I was able to clean up a mite, dry on my shirt-tail, then proceed to mosey on down to the barn for a casual look around. It was one of those rare days when nothing else was pressing and I could take time to “just be.”

There was a dump truck, fire engine, road grader and delivery truck, all things worthy of the dirt, grime and abuse they had accumulated on their metal frames.

Was it possible to get below the dirt, rodent and pigeon droppings to see what lie beneath?

Slowly they emerged, very worn, bearing rust or the spots of disappearing paint and, yet, they still wore enough of their original markings that I could see what they had once been. The dump truck logo on the red cab door read “Tonka Toys, Mound Metalcraft Inc., Mound, Minn.” The green bed for dumping dirt still went up and down as I pulled the lever. Its tires were hard and I couldn’t tell if they were rubber or plastic but I opted for rubber for the number of years since they had come from a factory at Christmas time.

The fire engine was fire-engine red, of course, and wore a Hubley Fire Dept. sign on each side. Beneath the body was the identification that it was a Hubley Kiddie Toy, Lancaster, PA, Made in U.S.A. #520. It was all metal except the tires which were similar to the other trucks.

There were no ladders or other equipment to associate with a fire truck, but the message was there with the addition of a metal turn-table with handle by which the ladders could have been swung into position.

How many yards of dirt, pebbles or other debris had the road grader pushed under the hand of its user? Black letters on the orange body identified it as a Tonka Road Grader, Diesel No. 600. No other identification but equipped with big hard black tires that probably at one time were soft rubber. How many hours of diligent labor had it seen under the hands of those boys as I mentally watched them at play beneath the more than 100-year-old Ponderosa pine tree beside the house?

Lastly was the newest vehicle, a white Payless delivery truck with its logo on each side. In dark purple/blue with yellow print the logo visually identified itself to potential customers as “Payless prescription drug stores” and beside the logo was the form of a little fellow, his body vertically spelling out the word “Less.”

On top of his head was a flat piece looking ever so much like a coin to form the brim of a hat with the crown a purple/blue word “Pay.” The vehicle had the hard rubber tires and on the wheel cover were the words “Structo Made in U.S.A. 10.00-20.”

It was good to see that the toys had all been made in the U.S.A. and I treasured them for that. They had basically stood the ravages of time and the efforts of little boys who hadn’t known plastic or all the workable parts available to modern-day children.

It had taken a great supply of their own ingenuity and imagination to build their empire out of a few metal, almost indestructible, toys with the soil of the land and hours of leisure to just be little boys.

I’m glad I went out to the barn and found these toys from the past of our sons, cleaned them up ... and remembered.

It made my day!

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Jim and John: Both of you asked what this week’s subject for my column was going to be. It was all ready and waiting, so I hope it will bring something similar to mind of your own childhood. Thanks for being interested and asking.

— Dory