I Can't Sell My Momma Short on Loving Me

One of my favorite toys when I was growing up was Rock'em Sock'em Robots. I still remember the sound it made when you got an upper cut to your opponent's head. That was before such graphic violence was frowned upon. You wouldn't want little boys to think of hitting each other.

Speaking of bad influences. In the seventies every little boy's hero was Evel Knivel. He was the dare devil that jumped cars, buses, etc. This was way before Fonzi jumped the shark, but around the time he jumped the barrels at Arnold's on his motorcycle and crashed into the chicken stand. I think there was supposed to be a moral to the story for us little guys, but we didn't get it at the time. We would jump trash cans on our bicycles,  albeit small ones. Proportionally it was just as dangerous.

I had this little toy as well. The thing I remember about this one (and a similar dragster with a single wheel that you would spin by pulling a notched plastic handle) is that if your sister's hair got caught in the spinning wheel it was quite a mess. Mom would use phrases like: "How in tarnation?" "What in tarnation?" "Who in tarnation?" "Why in tarnation?" "When in tarnation?" I always wondered, where is Tar-Nation? I think that's where Evel Knivel lived.