Decker

This is what I generally refer to as the  Saga of Decker.

I obtained my Mego Decker action figure one chilly morning during one of my many childhood visits to my godfather, all the way over on the east side of the Van Wyck. Yes, a trip consisting of a total 15 minutes from my home. Across the street from my godfather's place was a small general store. It was a cross between a hardware store and pharmacy from what I can remember. On occasion my mother and I would go there to pick up little things while my father visited with my godfather.

On one such occasion, I noticed a spinner rack full of carded toys. Not much in the way of selection, but I did spot a Star Wars figure. There amongst the dredge was an Empire Strikes Back Han Solo! Oh boy, this was my chance to actually OWN a Star Wars figure. Finally I could shut up the jerk with the Bespin Luke.

I grabbed Han Solo and as I was about to show my mom, I noticed a figure from Star Trek the Motion Picture. Being that I was about 4 or so, and as of yet unable to read, I thought it was Kirk. Well, I knew my mom was a fan of the show. I had caught her watching it on occasion. I figured, I bet she'd get a kick out of it, so I grabbed it to just LITERALLY SHOW HER.

Of course it played as as follows: I carry two figures up to my mom who is talking to the guy behind the counter. I show her the Star Trek figure first. She takes it from me. I go to hand her Han Solo, and she puts it counter and says we'd better get back. Once across the street, I'm handed my new toy: Star Trek's own Decker.

I guess in the confusion of her not paying attention to me as I tried to explain which I wanted and which I just wished to show, she misunderstood and just grabbed the first thing I handed her and paid for it.

So there I was with my brand new "I don't know who the heck this is" Star Trek guy. I figured he was Kirk. So I called him Kirk. He became my new best friend, being that he was the only 3 3/4inch figure I owned at the time. (I had a previous relationship with a Comic Action Hero Penguin, but that ended badly... for the Penguin.) Still, Decker and me, we had lots of fun. Sometimes he'd wear a cape and fly like a superhero. Sometimes he'd put on a parachute and become a daredevil the likes of which had not been seen since Evel Knievel.

One day, a year or so later, I was playing with the kids next door when one particular kid flung Decker high into the air... and he landed on the roof. Bye Bye Decker.

A couple of more years go by, and the neighbors have their roof redone... and off the roof flies Decker. A little worse for wear, but still good ole Decker. Of course he's caught by the kid next door, who has experienced a bout of amnesia it seems since he claims Decker was his all along and that *I* threw him on the roof. His mother takes his side. Again, Decker seemed lost to me.

But that did not last long. All it took was patience, and a little bit of the sneak, and Decker was back in my possession. Yes, I bided my time and when I saw the opportunity, I stole him from the kid next door. Granted since he was mine to begin with, I don't actually consider it "stealing" so much as I consider it liberating a POW.

Decker was an indoor toy from that point on. He wasn't quite the same, the ravages of being behind enemy lines had left their scar. The kid next door was a toy biter. Decker came back from the front without any fingers on his hands, and missing a good 40% of his paint. But he was mine.

I still have Decker. It's funny, for a figure I never wanted, he turned out to be a pretty good toy.

Super Powers Superman

When I was a child, my choices of after school TV viewing were pretty limited. Sure, you had GI Joe, Transformers, Voltron and Thundercats, but that was a measly 2 hrs of cartoon viewing! Unlike today where there are entire channels dedicated to cartoons, we had to make due with the many syndicated live action (read:mind numbing) reruns of Diff'rent Strokes, Three's Company, and of course, the deathbringer of afternoons... MASH. To this day, I cannot stand to hear the first few notes of "Suicide is Painless" without having a panic attack. MASH signaled the end of a fun afternoon and the beginning of the nightly parental confiscation of the the TV. Oddly enough, MASH made for a pretty good segue into the 6 o'clock news.

Now, not all live action syndicated shows were bad. In fact one stick out rather predominantly in my mind: 

The 1966 Batman TV show.

Every afternoon, Adam West would don the cowl, and Burt Ward would slip on the pixie shoes and for a half hour (and sometimes a full hour) would battle evil in beautiful technicolor!

As soon as the show was over, it seemed like every kid on the block would flood the stoops and streetcurbs, all with the same thought in mind:

"I wanna be Batman!"

"But you got to be Batman last time! You be Robin."

"But I won't want to be Robin."

"I'll be the Joker." 

"My porch is the Batcave."

"My bike'll be the Batmobile."

And so on until dark when mothers near and far would stick their heads out the front door and declare, "DINNER!"

That simple 20 year old show captured the imagination of every child I knew. So much so, that on Saturday Mornings, when The Superfriends would come on, Batman seemed to be a shell of the man we spent the week with. 

One day, while watching TV a rather curious commercial caught my eye. Kenner introduced me to the Super Powers lines. Finally, I would get another chance at Batman and Robin figures! (I had experienced a setback a few years previously in attempting to acquire a  Mego Magnetic Batman and Robin set. But that is a story for another time.)

They even released a Batmobile. It didn't look like the REAL Batmobile, but any car Batman was in automatically BECAME the Batmobile.

On our very next shopping trip to Cityline for various clothing related things, we stopped into the Woolsworths. Now, Woolsworths was a welcome retreat after spending hours upon hours watching my mother buy underwear and socks for the family. Woolsworths had a toy section I could go and browse in. After a few minutes, my eyes went straight to a locked display cabinet. (This was one of those "I need a salesman to open the case so I can buy it" things.) From behind the glass Batman and Robin seemed to wave at me. 

To say that it took one minute to locate my mother and drag her to the toy section would be to exagerrate. I do not think it took that long.

Normally I was not a begging sort of child. In fact, I never really ASKED for stuff. I was always rather subtle. The usual "Oh mom, look how neat that it," and then I would go through the work of explaining exactly HOW neat the item was, and that it's probably alot of fun, and well you get the point. I'd try to get my mom to offer to buy it for me. I would feign humility saying how it was unnecessary and make her insist. In the end, I would come home with the toy.

This was not one of those times. I downright asked my mom for Batman and Robin. And the Batmobile. In hindsight, I do believe the Batmobile was the dealbreaker. I was asking for too much at the end of a day where too much money had already been spent. So I got the "Mommy would buy it for you if she had the money" speech. Lord, I hated that speech. That may be why I never came right out and asked for things. I just didn't want to take the chance that I would get that speech.

But all was not completely lost. At seeing my apparent disappointment, my mother said she had enough money to buy one. I could get one at thet very moment, and as soon as she saved some more money we would come back and I could get the other one.

I wasn't about to fall for that again. I'd fallen for that line before with other toys. Sure, we'll come back... and by that time there wouldn't be any more. So my choice was either get a Batman without a Robin. Who would Batman call "Chum"? I could get a Robin without a Batman. Who would rescue Robin when he was tied up? Or I could get nothing.

And suddenly a third choice looked out at me from behind the glass: Superman.

Superman didn't need anyone. He was Superman! 

When the sales clerk came over unlock the case and he asked which one I wanted, I calmly said, "Superman." My mom was rather perplexed. "I thought you wanted Batman and Robin." 

"I want Superman more," was the only answer I could come up with.

We did return to Woolsworths during our next shopping excursion. I went straight to the toy section and there were no Super Powers figures at all.

And once again, I went without Batman and Robin.

Baker Smurf

I started kindergarten at the ripe old age of 6. It was my first lone venture into the world.

Okay, maybe not so lone. My mommy came along.

You see, until then, I had never been apart from my mother. She was a stay at home mom (or as we called it back in the 70's, "a mom".) She took me everywhere with her. I never had a babysitter nor I was ever left with relatives. No, I was attached at the hip to my mother. You can imagine the look on my face when the whole topic of going to school came up. "What do you mean you drop me off and leave me alone in a room full of strangers?"

There were other issues, of course. Although I was born in the United States, my parents were not. They had immigrated long before I came around, but were still in the process of acclimating. They spoke rudimentary English, enough to get by in NYC, but almost exclusively spoke in Spanish to each other and to other members of the family.  I say "almost exclusively" because they were both fans of cussing in English, but that is a story for another day.

My point in this diversion is to explain that until the age of 6, I spoke only Spanish. I understood very little English. What I knew, I learned from Sesame Street and the cartoons of the day.

When Kindergarten came into play, I found myself being abandoned by my mother, in a room full of strangers who did not understand me, and who I could not understand myself. I felt like an alien. I felt like a baby. So I made like a baby and cried until they called my mommy in to calm me down.

After that, my mother began her unpaid career of "Teacher Helper" for my Kindergarten class. I stopped crying, and started to acclimate myself. Soon I made friends and learn the language...but if my mom ever mentioned retiring from being a helper....waterworks.

One Thursday, on the way home from class, my mom mentioned needing something from the stationary store a block away from the school. It was an old fashioned pharmacy/stationary store/ 5 & Dime kind of place. It's still there in one incarnation or another, if Google Streetview is to be trusted.

While my mom did what she had to, I found myself staring into the glass display counter. It was the first time in my life I ever saw the Schleich Smurf PVC figurines. My mom must have been silently observing me as I went one by one and examined the little blue elves, because she came up behind me and in a soft voice asked if I wanted one, I could have one.

I picked Baker Smurf.

Not because I particularly like baking or baking-like activities. Honestly, I thought he was some sort of digger Smurf with a shovel. Only when I got him home did I realize that it wasn't dirt, but a loaf of bread that he held. I felt a little stupid, but that lasted only for a little bit.

The very next Thursday, on our walk home from school my mom turns to me asks if I wanted to stop by stationary store to look at some more Smurfs. Well, ya I wanted to look at more Smurfs!

Once I was mesmerized by the magical display case bursting at the seams with Smurfy goodness, my mom makes the declaration:

If I behave myself, get good grades, refrain from crying and act like a big girl...every Thursday I will get a new Smurf.

I behaved myself. I got straight A's. I didn't cry.

And ...I got a Smurf every Thursday without fail for at least 2 years.

Bespin Luke

I was 4 yrs old when The Empire Strikes Back first hit the silver screen. At that time, my family lived in a small first floor apartment in a rather poor area of Queens, New York. As such, I tended to play outdoors only when my mother was available to supervise, otherwise I was left to my own devices indoors.

I was an "only child" at that time. You could say, I was a "lonely child". Bad pun? Yes, but accurate.

There were other children on the block where I lived, but not in the same building. I usually watched these children play ball in the street, or ride bikes, all from my bedroom window. I wanted very much to join, but they were all older children. So I just sat there and watched.

It was around the time Kenner started airing commercials for the Empire Strikes Back toys when it happened. A boy moved into an apartment upstairs. He wasn't much older than me, and like me he wasn't allowed to play outside unsupervised. I'd see him on the stairs or playing in the hallway. At some point my mother and his must have spoken and they would allow us to play together in the hallway... as long as we didn't go outside.

Sounds good doesn't it? It wasn't. That kid was a jerk.

One day he came over with a brand new Luke Skywalker in Bespin Fatigues action figure! He showed me his lightsaber and gun, but I could only see it. I wasn't allowed to touch it. I was a girl, and well, aside from having cooties, girls lose accessories it seems.

To convince him otherwise, he said, I'd have to bring out MY Star Wars action figures so we could play. Problem was, I didn't have any Star Wars figures. Heck, I wasn't sure WHAT Star Wars was, other than what I had seen in the toy commercials. (I was convinced Han Solo was captured by an upside drinking glass for years!) And don't let it be forgotten that Star Wars were "boy toys", and I was NOT a boy. So I went inside my home and came back with something that might pass for an action figure, a Playmobil knockoff. To say I was laughed at would be a disservice to the howling histerics I was subjected to.

So went back inside, sat at my window, and watched the kids outside play ball and ride their bikes once more.