Things We Had

The very last collection of toy soldiers I had were the combined remains of all the sets I got and all the sets my older brothers got. I had a little group which were all different, each from a different war and each a different color. I named them all individually and this was the last patrol. We trail blazed. I had heard the story of Braddock's march into the wilderness with his army in the French-Indian Wars and the last patrol and I got our wagons and spend the whole afternoon tearing out the grass to make a road across our back yard. One of them was Daniel Boone, a frontiersman. One was a Civil War Bugler named Johnny. There were a couple of WWII types, one with a bazooka I think. They were time travelers. We had this in our basement:

left over from the grocery store. The top screwed off so the patrol could get aboard and go to other planets. One of the patrol got trapped in the gum ball dispenser shoot and died a horrible death.

I can remember playing out little dramas in the bathroom with the toothpaste tube and aftershave bottles and mouthwash etc as sort-of people and animals. Toothpaste made a great alligator in the tub.

I graduated to making up comic book heroes with a friend of mine and we would draw them and act out stories on my grandmother's front porch. Spiderman had nothing on us.

I guess I've always had my imaginary friends