GROWING UP ME -

Saturday, December 19, 2009

3:36 AM

A Spoonful of The Beatles Helps the Army Men Go Down

When I was in the 1st grade, I suffered a badly sprained ankle one day out on the school playground while playing jump rope. The next morning, a Saturday, my mom had to take me to the doctor because it was so swollen and painful that I couldn't walk on it at all. I hated going to the doctor when I was a kid. It scared the poop out of me. We're talking majorly high unnecessary anxiety. lol So as a reward and bribe for bravely going to the doctor, my mom took me downtown to buy a toy as soon as we were finished at the clinic. I couldn't walk so we went to pick my brother up at home so he could "help" me by going into Ben Franklin's and picking out a toy for me. The idea was that he would listen to my suggestions and then try to find one of those things or something very similar and girly. Yeah. It went just like that because brothers are totally just like that. LOL

I got army men. My mom gave the boy $1.00 (a lot of money at that time for a regular Saturday toy) and he spent every last penny of it on army men. lol That Bernie was a crafty one. lol

When I saw that which he had bought for me, a small hissy fit ensued. He appeased me by promising that if I would agree to keep them, he would stay home and play with me all day long. I really loved that idea. We were sharing a room at the time and our beds sat side by side with only a little walking space in between but we had never really taken advantage of that by joining kid forces and inventing fun games to play together. 7 years between and boy/girl siblings is a lot when one of you is in the 1st grade and one is in the 7th. Back then, there really weren't a lot of toys or games that the two age groups could enjoy sharing so I saw the army men thing as a golden opportunity to bridge a gap between me and the new teenager who lived one arm's length away from me in our tiny, but cozy little room. So I agreed to keep the army men and back to M****** Street we went to set up and win us a war.

I loved getting to play with my big brother but at the age of 6, I just didn't have the attention span or the strategic military mind, lol, to stay with the army men for more than an hour or so. I think I only lasted that long because of Bernie and because I loved the Beatles music that was playing. (Hey Jude, which STILL reminds me of that day every single time I hear it) So I had mom carry me to the living room so I could watch television (and what a fascinating line-up of shows I found available to me on Saturday afternoons in the 60's! Oy, veh.) and Bernie confiscated "my" new army men and added them to the collected which was, of course, the plan all along.

LOLOLOL

Bernie, if you have a pic of you playing with army men somewhere in your stash, send me a copy to add to this post, will you?