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Image from SerpentorsLair.com |
He would take me all over
Wilmington while we were there. We’d spend whole days together – just him and
me – and they were the best times ever.
More often than not those excursions were toy hunts, which is at least part of the reason for my love of toy collecting today. We’d drive to all of the toy hotspots – Lionel Playworld, BEST, Service Merchandise, Roses, and occasionally even gas stations if my need for a specific toy was urgent enough. More on that later.
I’ve talked about how I’m
not a fan of the GI Joe sub-brand Battleforce 2000. Part of it was that the
concept was too far afield of the standard Joe military style. Part was that
the vehicles were kind of shitty, even if the idea of combining them into a
large playset seemed like a good one. Part was that the one bad memory I have
of my times with Papaw is attached to the line.
I suppose commercials for
Battleforce 2000 were airing and I knew about the new toys. I was desperate to have the figures. I don’t
know why because looking at them now they’re not particularly exciting. But I
know I wanted them more than I had wanted any other Joe releases. Papaw and I
set out on our toy hunt and hit all of the regular spots. Nothing. At one of
our stops an older kid asked what I was looking for and I told him. He said
that Fast Fair had them. I asked Papaw if we could go to Family Fair.
He said that Fast Fare was a
gas station. The kid said they had a spinner rack of GI Joe figures.
HOLY
CRAP. This is the
first picture that popped up when I searched and it is of the Fast Fare in Wilmington, NC.
Naturally my grandfather was
skeptical of this kid’s information. I would be. We had driven all over town
and found nothing. It seemed terribly
unlikely that a gas station would have these brand new GI Joe figures that even
Service Merchandise did not. And even if Fast Fare had had them at some point, chances were they wouldn’t anymore.
Side Note:
People don’t ever talk about it, but Service Merchandise was the place to score new toys. I can
picture the toy section of the Wilmington location like it was yesterday and I
know a large portion of my purchases were made there. Also, to this day
Wilmington gets toys weeks, sometimes months, before Atlanta. I always came
back home with jealousy-inspiring finds. I had M.U.S.C.L.E. figures before
anyone else.
But Papaw was Papaw and he
took me to Fast Fare with the understanding that if they didn’t have any
Battleforce 2000 we would head home. We had been out all day and I’m sure he
was ready to sit in his recliner and relax.
Sure enough, Fast Fare had
Battleforce 2000 figures. And not just a couple, they had all of them. But there was a problem. The figures were more than
the standard price. I want to say a lot
more, like $7.99 instead of $2.99. I
didn’t know at the time that stuff was always more expensive in drug stores and
convenience stores. Papaw was the kindest person ever, but he was always
serious about how much money I had to spend. If we had found the Joes at
regular retail I think I could’ve gotten four or five, but at Fast Fare’s price
I could only get two.
I begged and pleaded and
whined, which was unusual for me. I was normally a very polite and well-behaved
kid. But I had never come up against Papaw’s iron will before. He had never
really had to tell me “no”. I’m sure he was as nice as he could be about it and
I think he even said we could go out again the next day, but the thought of
leaving those figures that I had to have
there on that spinner rack made me crazy. I acted like a brat. I can’t remember
now if I even got any of the figures or not.
After that trip, Papaw came
home and told either Mom or Granny, “I don’t know who that is, but that’s not
my [grandson].” I had been a jerk about it, but hearing that made me feel more
hurt and ashamed than anything else that has ever happened in my life.
That wasn’t his intent,
obviously. I mean not to upset me that
much. He just wanted to make the point that I had been acting poorly. But it
was devastating to me. Our relationship was that we were pals that went out and
had fun. I had broken our unspoken contract by acting like a jerk.
One of the best feelings I
ever had also came from Papaw. I was talking to my mom a couple of years ago
about being a dad and about what I wanted for my son and how I tried to treat
him. She told me that the way I was with my son reminded her so much of the way
that Papaw was and that’s the best thing anyone has ever said to me.
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The Future Fortress - image from HISSTank.com |
I’ve got plenty of other stories
to share about my grandfather and this is literally the only painful one. That
just seems to be how the human brain works, right? The bad stuff jumps to the
front.
Stay tuned for future Papaw tales
of haunted ships, iron on t-shirt stores, boardwalks, and the Alamo!
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