When children get to a certain age, they start wishing really hard to reach certain milestones: I Wish I Were Tall Enough to Ride This Ride. I Can’t Wait ’Til I Can Finally Order Off the Big Person Menu.
Then, of course, they become teenagers, and while the sentiment stays much the same, the tone changes. I Can’t Wait Until the Day I Wander Off at the Mall and My Loser Parents Don’t Chase Me Down. Please, God, Will You Lower the Driving Age to 16?
But before any of that, before kids are even capable of doing the wishing, we as their parents do it for them. When my son turned 3, he got a healthy stack of Play-Doh as a present. A murmur rose among the gathered as they reminisced about their own childhoods.
There was only one person in the room who was not excited. It was the person who had never heard of Play-Doh, the one who until that day had been officially too young to enjoy it. He had no idea what it was when he saw it. Had looked forward to nothing.
At the end of the party, a tableful of people who had stuck around encouraged him to open up his new presents. He responded with something less than enthusiasm, but that hardly discouraged the crowd. Next thing I knew, boxes and cans of Play-Doh were all over the kitchen, and a lot of people were having fun. Even, eventually, the birthday boy.
I might have hoped he would have shown more enthusiasm for his new 20-pack of Matchbox cars, also officially an age-appropriate birthday present that day. The sight of the toy replicas filled me with nostalgia, thinking back to summers spent playing with friends, pushing red Lamborghinis and tan Porsche 928s and flame-sided Toyota Celicas along tabletops or through the dirt.
I parted with my boyhood collection in summer 1996, when my parents had a garage sale. It would have been silly for me to keep the toys, to lug them from apartment to apartment and house to house, waiting for a day when I might have kids who would want them. In well-used condition they were worthless to collectors. Someone forked over $5 or $10 for the lot, and that’s the last I thought about them for almost two decades.
Then my son was 3. Now I find myself in stores regularly, mulling over possible additions to his young collection. (Only for this: “I got a new car for you, would you like it?” “No thanks, Dad, I’m good with the cars I have.”)
A few of my friends have kept their collections. I watch with not a little envy as their kids play with those little Mazda RX-7s and Ford Cortinas, which raise memories but also are more impressive in craftsmanship than newer ones. Cars today are inexpensive, but they’re cheaply made. No doors or hoods that open, headlights painted on.
I had begun spending time on eBay, figuring out what it might cost to re-create my collection car by car, when I was with a friend and his son and the son’s inherited vintage matchbox car. We watched as the boy dipped the car in a mall fountain and stuck it into his mouth. “Yeah, I kept my old cars,” the friend said. “Of course, they’re probably coated with lead paint,” he added with a nervous laugh.
And just like that, I thought: Thank God I didn’t keep my old matchbox cars. Let the boy enjoy the cheap toxin-free cars of his day. Of the two of us, the only one who will care about the ol’ green Cortina is me.
