|
Page A4 The Joan De Arc Crusader / Thursday, December 25, 2014 Front Page A1 / Editorials A2 / Tales A3 / Crossword A5
The Marx Warriors: A Christmas Eve 1964 memory By J.Bueker Our Christmas
fifty years ago stands out for me. This was the year when brother Charles and I
received the coolest new toy ever – America’s Movable Fighting Man, G.I. Joe. At
that point in my young life, I was “Army Man Bueker” and absorbed in all things
military, and so the timing was fortuitous. But I’ve another warm memory of Christmas 1964 that also involves a military toy and is equally deserving of mention. The evening before we received our Joes was naturally devoted to the Christmas Eve gathering at Grandma and Grandma Swaggerty’s house on Northern Avenue. A shoebox-sized gift was waiting under the tree for Charles and me from our Uncle John and Aunt Sandy that night. Unwrapping the gift revealed a shoebox, unsurprisingly, but the contents were most extraordinary. Inside we found about two dozen small boxes, each containing a plastic toy soldier. Closer examination revealed the soldiers were part of a series of such toys called Marx Warriors of the World. These were no run-of-the-mill mass-produced plastic soldiers. The Marx Warriors were molded from high-quality plastic, hand-painted by Marx artists, and individually boxed with a picture card of the warrior tucked inside. Each warrior was distinct in appearance and given his own name and backstory, and Marx made available soldiers from just about every military conflict imaginable in the history of mankind. What a cool gift! Marx of course was one of the dominant toy manufacturers of the 20th century, cranking out everything from train sets and play sets to an endless variety of plastic figurines during their run from 1919 to 1978. Marx toys were simply ubiquitous. Kresge’s at Chris-Town had an excellent selection of the Marx Warriors and I suspect this is where our uncle and aunt may have purchased them. The only problem with the Marx Warriors was their relative fragility. The hard plastic from which they were molded tended to be brittle and did not lend itself well to rigorous play. They were almost certainly intended more for display than play, but I suspect this nuance was lost on most kids our age. In any case, the things are now extremely collectible. Some of those ten-cent toy soldiers currently sell for as much as a hundred dollars apiece or more in mint in-the-box condition. Naturally, Charles and I took our Marx Warriors home, discarded the boxes, and played with the figures until they were broken, worn out and inevitably thrown away. Ah well, they were certainly a lot of fun while they lasted. I don’t recall many of the gifts I received on those wonderful Christmas Eves at Grandma’s so long ago, but the Marx Warriors of the World are vividly imprinted on my memory banks. Thank you John and Sandy for such a wonderful holiday memory, and Merry Christmas.
My hockey Christmas on Joan De Arc: 1969 By J. Bueker By Christmas
1969, I was getting a little older and things were changing. A 6th
grader at Sahuaro, I now had several teachers to deal with instead of just the
one, as we
Football was always my favorite athletic endeavor, but during this period I also became quite enamored of hockey. The local Phoenix Roadrunners minor league team had a very loyal following and I was fortunate enough to be treated to an occasional game at the Coliseum. Meanwhile on Joan De Arc, my pals and I were diligently forming our own street hockey team. Strictly speaking, we weren’t really playing street hockey so much as driveway hockey. The relatively smooth concrete was a much better surface for the activity. We would compete occasionally in the Bueker driveway, but without a doubt the best “rink’ to which we had access was at Glen Eide’s house directly behind 3219. The Eides had an extended driveway with an enclosed carport, which was ideal. When the action was in the carport end of the driveway, you actually had “boards” to play the tennis ball “puck” off, just as in real hockey. Glen was the best hockey player in Surrey Heights, no doubt. This guy would unleash a blistering slapshot with that tennis ball that could kill small animals. I got in the way of a few of those blasts and it was no fun, let me tell you. Neighbor Tom Neff was our exceptionally skilled goaltender, and yours truly proved to be a competent stick handler and certainly a physical presence on the “ice.” Interestingly, I discovered that I was naturally a left-handed hockey player. However, hockey equipment was not easy to come by in 1960s Phoenix. Having a cool hockey stick to play with was a big deal, and sticks were usually acquired only by those who had a connection with the Roadrunners or one of the local amateur leagues. If you didn’t have a stick, you couldn’t play. Fortunately, Glen was able to rustle up some serviceable, used sticks for most of us and then it was game on. Down the street, Ricky Rose had somehow acquired some serious hockey gear, including knee and elbow pads, a helmet, and a highly-prized Louisville Slugger stick. We all felt the helmet was a bit much for driveway hockey, especially given the fact that even most real hockey players weren’t yet wearing helmets at this point in time. Still, it looked kinda cool, and he insisted on wearing it every time we played. Taken
together, we formed a pretty good team. However, the elite neighborhood driveway
hockey players were over in Westown. Our Sahuaro classmates Dale Holmes, Rocco
DeVincenzo and Randy Matthews all played in an actual junior ice hockey league,
and these guys were really good. The Surrey Heights team challenged the
Westowners several times and we got soundly thrashed for our trouble on each
occasion.
Win or lose however, street hockey proved to be an exceptionally fun activity for everyone involved. The one thing we were lacking was a proper hockey goal. Two trash cans with a stick laid across the top was a less than optimal arrangement, but this issue would finally be resolved by the sacred Sears Christmas Wish Book. The Wish Book was of course the definitive guide for finding the Christmas gift of my dreams, and this year would be no different. When the 1969 edition arrived at 3219, a quick scan of the index brought me to the page featuring hockey equipment. For a mere $8.66, Sears offered a two-man “Hockey Trainer Set,” which featured a rubber puck, two sticks, and most significantly, an actual hockey goal constructed from tubular steel. Suitable for both “ice and pavement,” the Trainer Set seemed the ideal choice, given my desire to obtain some serious hockey equipment as my big gift that Christmas. And so my brother Charles and I spent that early Christmas morning out in the backyard trying to play hockey with the new set. It was pretty cold out, the dead grass was fairly frozen and icy, and the rubber puck did slide around a bit. This arrangement didn’t really work all that well, but I could already see the possibilities of the new set for sidewalk hockey. This hockey goal was going to be a lot of fun. Naturally, everyone loved the new Sears hockey goal. It added a new dimension of authenticity to our sidewalk hockey matches, and the only shame was that no one else had thought to ask Santa for such a set so we could have two of the things to play with. We still had to use the trash cans and stick for the other goal. Some months after I received my new Sears hockey set, the Westown hockey players honored me with a visit to 3219 to check out the new goal. They were extremely impressed. Dale Holmes remarked that he had to use an open fence gate at home as a goal to practice with. Needless to say, my hockey cred with the Westowners skyrocketed that day. I was very proud. And of course they continued to kick our butts whenever we played them. After our driveway hockey days were over, the old Sears hockey goal continued to serve for a couple of years in the high school water polo games we played at my buddy Vito’s house. I wound up leaving it there when I departed for college. This was one childhood Christmas present that got a lot of use and served me well. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ JDA
|
were
being transitioned into the format of junior high school. Puberty was fast
approaching and girls were becoming increasingly problematic. I was also
becoming quite infatuated with sports, and beginning to leave behind some of my
earlier preoccupations like astronomy and dinosaurs.