I know that as a kid, I had a huge passion for G.I.JOE. It stemmed from two things really, a love of war comics and a love of little green army men.
I would sit for hours and set up two opposing forces on my living room rug. All of the guys were green of course, but I knew who was on what side and that was all that mattered. Lincoln logs were also an integral part of this ritual. Two of those smaller pieces stacked together made for a great cannon. Many times I had too many cannons and not enough pieces to build a small fort. Those little defense contractors must have had budgetary constraints or limited supplies. Those forces always grew. Bags of army men were inexpensive and after a few years they created a minefield for the adult feet of my parents. I loved the way it looked, one army on each side of the living room, no air support, just a tank and a jeep and one transport truck. Yes there must have been hours upon hours of battles in that living room with oral reports of machine guns rifles and cries of pain when they were shot and or knocked out of the action. My favorites were the bazooka men, the kneeling machine gunners and the radio operators. My least favorites were the crawlers and the ones with their M-16 held high over their head ready to stab with their bayonets. They were usually the first casualties. Worthless combatants in those rug burned knee battles of yesteryear.
Then all that changed in 1982, in 1982 something captured my eye and my heart igniting a passion that has lasted decades.
G.I.JOE was back and I did not even know he had been gone. I honestly did not have any G.I.JOE stuff from the 70's. I had Mego and a Lone Ranger and Tonto, I had the Batmobile and of course I had Star Wars. I had never heard of GIJOE though.
The first thing I remember was there was a comic. A comic that would become a monthly ritual for 155 or so months of my life. I would visit the local drug store and search the comic rack in vain for weeks but when it did come out it was like finding gold.
That same ritual applied to my favorite new toy, G.I.JOE, A Real American Hero. We lived in a small town, maybe 1500 people at that time. It did not afford much in the way of shopping opportunities. There were two stores that carried GIJOE. The Coast to Coast, and the Johnson Store, owned by Mr. Johnson. Now we were in town at least once a week, to buy groceries such as milk or bread, you know, the staples. We would load up my bike into the back of the truck on some occasions and I would ride around town. We certainly did that in my Grandparent's hometown.
I am not sure why but I was given an allowance. $1.00 a week. It eventually grew to $5.00 and then just around middle or high school it reached $10.00 a week, at first though, it was $1.00 a week.
$1.00 for comic books which were a quarter, and anything else I wanted back then. So if I really wanted anything I had to save. Save for many weeks.
That is how I got my GIJOE VAMP. I put it on Layaway at the Coast to Coast. $1.00 a week. Sears had the VAMP for $8.99. This was a Coast to Coast so it was probably close to that price but I imagine a bit more.
Simple math tells you that it took, oh I imagine ten or eleven weeks to get that VAMP.
3 months of waiting, eagerly looking forward to having it in my hands. I was so eager that I nearly drove my best friend's mom nuts when she was somehow placed in charge of me the day I was to pick it up. She lived even further from town than we did, five miles instead of three. Listening to a ten year old ask if we were going to the store every time you got in the car was probably more than a little grating on her nerves. I purchased a Dragonfly the same way the next year. Coast to Coast layaway. It was 11.99 so I imagine that may have taken longer. Maybe not, maybe my allowance was up to $2.00 by then. That is one of those many things lost in my memory banks.
How then could I have ever gotten all the figures and all those vehicles every year with such a small allowance? Well I was also paid $1.00 an hour to mow the lawn. Now mowing the lawn was more fun than work. I got to ride around on the lawn mower for a few hours. I also had to push the smaller mower. I would sometimes go a little slower on the riding mower by putting it at the first speed instead of the second speed, but I was told to. Go too fast and that half acre would not be cut right. Once the mowing was done I would lift up the blade, and it was the fifth speed all the way to the garage.
The best part is yet to come. We made a monthly pilgrimage to the big city of Grand Forks. Once a month we would hit Kmart, the mall, and later Target, and the Columbia Mall. There was also a toy store in the Columbia Mall. I bought hundreds of Star Wars Empire Strikes Back trading cards there.
I would tear through that rack looking over each multipack very carefully. I knew exactly what cards I had or didn't have. Imagine packaging like that today where you could see what cards you were getting! Unthinkable right?
It kept me out of my parent's hair while they shopped elsewhere in the mall. I was allowed to spend as much time as I wanted to in that store until they came and got me. Such irresponsible parents eh? leaving a kid all alone in the mall. Not in those days though. Not at all.
Star Wars was my second hobby you see. Just like every other kid my age at that time. We all had Star Wars. I was the kid with the GIJOE collection, there was another kid who had Transformers, and yet another who had He-Man. Interesting how a bunch of ten year olds each found their favorite thing to collect and no one else really did the same thing. We each had our own joy.
We did the rounds every month, as I said. Most of the year it was pretty uneventful. Then the masters of marketing at Hasbro, who I must thank for the anxiety I am about to discuss, ahem, yes I mean you, Kirk Bozigian, came up with the brilliant idea of putting inserts in the packaging and card art on the back of figures.
In those days before the internet, that was the way we knew what delights awaited us each year. The last waves of an assortment to hit stores contained those pamphlets.
The ones so wonderfully archived here. Those catalogs whet our appetites for several years. They were maps to annual treasure. Lovingly read over and over with anticipation. Look at that vehicle. What in the world is that ? Oh wow a new fighter jet!
So began the hunt, even though it was not going to be possible in reality to see those the next week. The mind of a child ignores that. I looked. I looked every time I was in a store for those new figures or vehicles. In hindsight perhaps that was to my benefit that they were not readily available. It gave me time to save allowance, mow the lawn, do the dishes. You know G.I.JOE actually kept our household in order in a weird indirect way.
The hunt did not last though, once all the assortment of those figures for that year was in my bedroom, things became more of a situation like buying a lotto ticket. The toy aisle was my first destination. Many months were probably filled with disappointment. Nothing new yet. I still looked through every peg to see if next year's wave was here though. I think based on my pattern of behavior at that time, I would probably pick up the vehicles I did not have yet and read those file cards, looked over the details that may or may not be what I found inside. Actual colors may vary you know. Oh and the flag points, don't forget those flag points. Figures were one flag point. Vehicles however, varied. The bigger the vehicle the higher the amount of flag points. This was actually pretty critical. You might plan your next purchase based on flag points. You had to get those mail order items too. Now this vehicle was not going to be much help. 1/2 of a flag point? Where is the other half? Ah here it is. Crafty Kirk, at it again.
My shopping habits became adventures. Always hoping that the next time we went to the store there would be a new set of figures on the pegs. Once a year, my eyes would light up and my fingers would fly. Who is that? Some years the figures beat the pamphlets. Not many but it did happen. Pamphlets were key to discover new vehicles in that case. Once I saw that new specialist on the pegs the first thing I did was flip it over and begin to rifle those pegs. I would take out the wallet and look. OK I can get these three..."Mommmmmmmmmmm". The next step was to hit up Mom for the other new ones. "Can I have an advance?"
