70s-child: A 1973 Christmas present.

Sunday, July 10, 2005

A 1973 Christmas present.

At long last, Captain Peg Leg!!!!!!!

Matchbox Fighting Furies Capt. PEG-LEG 1973 MIB!!!

I received this action figure in the Christmas of '73, so I was 6 years old. I had always remembered this figure but I forgot it's name and manufacturer. I just figured it out through some detective work on ebay (that's where I get many of my photos for this blog). This guy had a removeable peg leg with a 'treasure map' inside. I unscrewed his leg so much my mom would say: "Joe would you quit playing with that damn leg, you're gonna break it!!".
Mom had such a way with words.

Don't expect much out of me for a quarter:

As a kid, I never got an allowance. That's something my folks weren't into. They were very generous with me, I never lacked anything, and usually when I asked for something they'd get it for me, but an allowance just wasn't going to happen. In '76, just before my folks split up, dad decided to give me a "job". It was sometime in January and the weather was pretty brutal, so he told me he'd pay me a quarter if I'd open the garage door for him when he got home so he wouldn't have to get out of the car and open it himself. We lived in a split level house (a raised-ranch), and the garage was in the lower level. The very first night, I was watching TV and I heard him pull in and stop at the garage door. I didn't want to leave my show, and it was pretty cold down there in the garage, and I was rather warm and cozy and comfortable sitting in front of the tv, so I basically ignored him. He honked. He honked again. And again. And again. Finally I heard him open the car door, open the garage himself, pull into the garage and slam the door shut. The way he slammed the door, I could tell he was angry and that I was in trouble. He came upstairs and just looked at me. Let's just say I lost my job that night, which didn't really bother me. A QUARTER??? I didn't get out of BED for that kind of money...