| Dear Santa, I Would Like... |
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Reading through the many Santa letters in this week's Journal, I was reminded of the many Christmas wishes of my youth. Not that I ever wanted a Dora purse like Makyla Wallace, or a Wii game like Jayke Cosby, or a simiscreed III like Creed Stafford. I don't even know what a simiscreed III is. I bet Creed doesn't know what a vibrating electric football game is either. I got one of those at least twice as a kid because I wore the first one out. For those who don't remember, the game was played on a big metal ‘field’, with plastic players and a small football-shaped piece of foam for the ball. You set your players up on the field, flipped the switch and the board would begin vibrating violently causing all the men to move in every direction (never the direction you intended). The game left a lot to the imagination, but that was a good thing, unlike most of the games today. One of my favorite Christmas traditions was sitting down at my grandparents' (G.L and Thelma McNeece) kitchen table in Raymond with my cousins and flipping through the giant Sears catalog to fill out our Christmas wish lists. I was lucky to get one thing off the list, but it was the searching that was so much fun. One of the things on my list every year was a Nerf football. They still make Nerfs today, but they come with all kinds of waves and fins and crazy stuff on them. Mine was just a plain blue or red Nerf football that had to be replaced by Santa every year because after too many good backyard football games in the rain, there wasn't much left of it. Electric racetracks were also a regular around my house at Christmas. The tracks snapped together allowing you to make all kinds of courses. The tiny cars sat on the slots and you grabbed the attached gun and pulled the trigger to watch your car take off. They were always great fun for a couple weeks, which was about as long as they lasted before they were destroyed beyond repair. There were other great gifts such as my "Rock'em Sock'em Robots." I would wear my thumbs out mashing on the button trying to make my opponent's head pop up. Another favorite was the Huffy Thunder Road bicycle I got one year. The classic black bike with blue and orange fenders and a big number 56 on it fulfilled my wishes for a big racing dirt bike. I had to push it to the street to get on it, pulling the wheels in the gutter while I stood on the curb to hop in the saddle. On a side note, I searched the internet for Thunder Road to make sure it was a Huffy as I remembered and found an exact replica of my bike in the BMX Museum. That's a hard-hitting fact of how old I'm truly getting – my childhood bicycle is now in a museum. Santa let me down on my first football helmet. I wanted a Dallas Cowboys' helmet, but instead received a plain white helmet with a navy stripe over it. I made up for it by taking a blue magic marker and coloring a star on each side. Thinking back on all those Christmas mornings still gets me excited. I wonder if it's too late to ask Santa for another electric football game. You may email Joel McNeece at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it |
