Through the eyes of a kid

When I was a kid, I liked to look at the ads in Popular Mechanics Magazines. There were a lot of fun looking things they were trying to sell.

One of the ads showed a picture of a big muscular guy kicking sand on a skinny fellow at the beach. In the background, there were a couple of girls in bikinis laughing at the skinny guy. In the caption, it said "are you tired of being a 90 pound weakling?" I was thinking, "yeh, I am, but I'm only six".

Then there was this small package that turned into a kayak looking boat. That must have been fun. I think it was called a Folbot. They still make them. They look even better now.

Another ad I liked was the sawmill. You could take logs and cut them up into boards. It reminded me of the saw my Uncle used to have. It was a huge circular saw blade mounted on some posts. He would go out to the woods and cut down some trees and load them on his logging truck. Then he would bring them back to the field beside my grandmother's house and cut them up with the big saw. After he unloaded the logs off the truck, he would jack it up and take the wheels off one side of the rear axle. He then put a long belt around a wheel with no tire on it and around a drum on the shaft with the saw blade. Then he started the truck and turned the blade with the truck axle. This was long before OSHA.

Maybe it was because Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen were popular at the time, but I really wanted to learn how to be a ventriloquist. The ads said it was easy and anybody could learn. I just never got up the nerve to ask Mom if she would buy me the lessons. It may have been because I knew she would say "if you want to play with dummies, go find your brothers." Sorry Bros.