Rambling Josh

Over the Fourth of July weekend a rare event occurred. An event so physically and psychologically damaging that many involved may never achieve a full recovery.

Since most involved have never been accused of being physically or psychologically normal to begin with, a full recovery would still leave half a deck. Half a deck, no kings, no queens, a bunch of jokers and one Batman.

The Ellis family reunion was summed up pretty well in the shirts my sister, Amanda designed for the event “What a Blast.” Literally and figuratively, we had a blast and if you didn’t, there were so many people there that no one probably noticed anyway.

It had been a long time since Fritz and Helen’s children had all been able to get together and enjoy, or at least tolerate, the company of each other’s families. It seems that enjoying and/or tolerating one another is something we all used to do a lot more of, and I hope this is the start of a more regular get-together for the Ellis clan.

I enjoyed sitting there and hearing all the voices and laughs that were part of my childhood. I felt like a kid again hearing my aunt, Carol’s snort and seeing her spit a mouth full of water out laughing at her brother, Ronald. These people know how to laugh, full on and often, and if you can’t handle that laugh being pointed in your direction from time to time you’re either a new in-law or possibly adopted from much more serious ancestry.

Serious isn’t bad but we’ll do all we can to laugh it into submission.

Family reunions are important for many reasons. They provide reassurance to your wife she’s not the only women that has to put up with people like you. This is a wonderful time to form an in-law support group. Just be sure to have your group meeting out of bottle rocket range. We can’t help ourselves.

Family reunions are also a good time to learn that when the neat glowing liquid inside of those plastic glow sticks is squirted directly into the eyes, it will result in about an hour of searing pain. Who knew? My son knows now, but I mean before that.

It’s all fun and games until you lose an eye or two. Then it’s still fun and games but your horseshoe and skeet shooting ability declines a bit. Speaking of skeet shooting… Family reunions are a good time to become aware of your wife’s ability to effectively handle a shotgun. If she can hit a clay pigeon, she can hit you. Let that thought soak in a little.

I am truly thankful for my family and proud to be a part of the Ellis clan. Seeing all of us in one spot it was hard to believe it all started with just two people. Two people can cause a lot of problems if they’re not careful.

Thank you, Aunt Debbie and Uncle Doug for turning your farm into a KOA for a few days. Next time when selecting a reunion location we will base our decision on sewer system capabilities.

Next time?

My wife and I accomplished 15 years of marriage last week. A feat that has taken us far and wide, up and down, this way and that, and sometimes a little sideways but always together or at least a phone call away in the event of an emergency.

What has my man brain learned about the institution of marriage and the woman I suckered into sharing it with me after 15 years? If I learn twice as much in the next 15 years as I did in the first 15, our 30th wedding anniversary will be the day I explain that I can count all I’ve learned on the fingers of one hand. That is, of course, if in the next 15 years I lose four of the fingers on that hand while attempting to give a quarter to Leroy the chimp at the North Dakota State Fair.

That would leave one very fortunate and slightly disfigured finger for me to wave about as I prophesize to our 30th anniversary guests about my knowledge of marriage and women that are your wife. The chainsaw ice sculpture that claimed the fingers on my other hand wouldn’t even begin to drip in the June heat before the extent of my wisdom had been surpassed.

Grab a pen and paper lads…Marriage is a lot of work and women are a complete mystery. Not bad work but work that you want to keep at until you get it right or at least less wrong than right. And who doesn’t like a good mystery? A mystery, that just when you think you’ve got it figured out you are made aware of an entire chapter that had previously been missing.

For as long as you pursue solving that mystery new chapters will continually appear and you will continually make wrong assumptions in regards to the mystery. Gives you plenty to ponder while you’re mowing the yard, swaying in your hammock, or walking the dog. All equally great activities for mulling over the mystery of the woman you share your life with. Men like to mull and ponder even if it produces no useful answers, the act of mulling and pondering is an enjoyable pastime.

When people hear it’s your anniversary the inevitable question is always, “What did you get your wife?” If the question is posed by a man, he is looking for ideas for his own anniversary or hoping the gift you gave was worse than the one he gave so he can scamper home with evidence he hopes will convince his wife she should be glad she got a bug zapper.

If, on the other hand, the question is posed by the wife-type either you or her husband is going to end up at the business end of the “what a stupid gift” stick. So, in the spirit of brotherhood and self-preservation I refuse to answer the woman wielding the “what a stupid gift” stick.

To somewhat lessen the likelihood of us man-types buying undesirable gifts for anniversaries some kind soul put together a traditional wedding gift list that provides direction for the directionless for each and every year of marriage. The list informed me that the 15th year of marriage should include a gift of crystal.

I thought of having a girl named Crystal pop out of a cake, but she had been injured playing Twister at a bachelor party the week before and Emerald was the only one available. So instead, I went shopping for crystal. I’ve never shopped for crystal before, but I can tell you there is nothing manly about it. I couldn’t even bring myself to ask the store personnel where their crystal was.

“Can I help you sir?” “Just sort of looking for that clear stuff that looks like glass but is called something else and the list says we should give it to our wife when we’ve been married for 15 years.” “You mean crystal?” “Maybe that….Could you not say that so loud?”

They kindly led the way, and I picked something simple and somewhat useful…to remind her of me.

Twenty years ago, the class of 1991 walked across the stage to accept their high school diplomas to bring a chapter in their lives to a close and begin the next. The chapter that came to a close was a fairly predictable chapter that contained relatively the same plot for everyone involved with a few minor differences here and there.

With the class motto, “With yesterday’s knowledge we challenge tomorrow, for tomorrow we lead and today we follow,” we headed out the door of the friendly confines of Burke Central High School blissfully unaware of what lie ahead. As our history and shop teacher, Leonard Savelkoul, always said, “Ignorance is bliss.”

One day during class when several of us were expressing how we couldn’t wait to get out of this place Mr. Savelkoul told us there would come a day when “this place” is exactly where you will wish you could be because life outside of these walls isn’t all rainbows and puppies. As usual most of us blew this off as crazy old teacher talk. As usual Mr. Savelkoul was right.

The words of some other crazy old person also stick in mind. I don’t remember who said it, but I remember right after graduation he came up to me in the post-graduation congratulatory hand shaking, hug, sniffle, and cry lineup and said, “Congratulations, now you’re one of us.” I laughed when he said it but felt a definite “thud” deep inside. I think the thud was the rainbow collapsing on the puppy.

Where did we get our class motto? I have no idea. I know we didn’t Google “class mottos” because in 1991 Googling was not an option. Heck the internet wasn’t an option in 1991. As a matter of fact, I think you could be arrested for “Googling” in 1991. No internet, cell phones the size of toaster ovens and while some were still fighting the switch from 8-track to cassette we were on the verge of making the switch from cassette to compact disk.

As far as class mottos go, it’s got a pretty good message. I’m sure in our infinite teenage wisdom that was why we settled on it. I remember it took up a lot of space on the curtain behind the stage and whoever had to make the tinfoil covered letters probably would have been pleased to have a shorter motto. It would have been easier to project the motto onto the curtain with PowerPoint I suppose but in 1991 you could get suspended from school for “power pointing.”

So instead, the letters were all carefully stenciled, cut out, covered in foil, and then tossed in the dumpster behind the school. With a thud they landed in a heap under the fading rainbow while the puppy raised a leg to mark the beginning of our lives as “one of them.” One of them expected to go forth and be a productive member of society.

For the most part I think we were able to accomplish that task. Although that task may not have been as glamorous as we had imagined 20 years ago, I think the class of 1991 has done alright as “one of them” and even managed to enjoy a few rainbows and puppies along the way.

Many professions have internships, apprenticeships, or something similar, as part of the requirements to work in that particular profession.

Generally, it is a specific time frame you have to spend working under the supervision of someone in your chosen field. In the field of teaching an individual does several of these internships and then the last big test is the student teaching.

I think the most important reason for these internships is to give students an inside look at the profession they think they want to embark on. Some professions seem interesting, cool, and even enjoyable when viewed from the outside but become anything but when you find yourself knee deep in the stuff they didn’t teach you about in college.

There have been studies that have shown that certain college majors see an increase in enrollment when television shows about that profession become popular. Criminal justice and forensic science majors saw an increase when all the CSI type shows became popular. I’m not sure if “Welcome Back Kotter” had the same effect on the teaching profession. I know Hawkeye and the gang on M.A.S.H made emergency surgery seem like a hoot.

If television can make a profession look cool, students will come and we all know television can make just about any profession seem cool and filled with nonstop fun and adventure. Cool and filled with nonstop fun and adventure? When’s the last time you heard someone describe their job in those words? Besides your accountant.

I chaperoned a field trip for my son’s fifth grade class a few weeks ago and volunteered to help in his classroom last week while they worked on a special project. The project involved fire, so I guess the teacher wanted as many so-called adults around as possible to spritz water on any flaming students. There were a few students I would have liked to have thrown a blanket over and given a few whacks in a fire snuffing demonstration.

There was a student teacher in my son’s classroom during both of these cool, nonstop fun and adventure days in the life of an elementary school teacher. He seemed like a pretty sane guy, friendly, intelligent, and the kids loved him, but when I left after my chaperone stints I thought, “Is that guy out of his mind?” Even after months of student teaching in a room with 25 no-attention span, no off button fifth graders he still wants to be a teacher.

I would think teaching might be a profession where they would benefit from keeping prospective teachers out of the classroom until after they graduate and then springing the cool, nonstop fun and adventure on them like some cruel trap.

I chaperone and volunteer in my kids’ classrooms quite a bit and have never once left thinking, “Ya know, I think I want to be an elementary or middle school teacher…it seems so cool and full of nonstop fun and adventure.” No, I usually leave thankful I do what I do and don’t have to answer off-the-wall questions and respond to strange observations from strange little people. Like the observations expressed to me, “Boy your voice is deep.”

Maybe you learn not to respond because I’ve noticed the teachers usually only respond to pertinent questions…of which there are very few. But I felt rude not responding, so I said, “Ahh..thanks..someday yours might get deeper too..maybe.” Or “Wow you have hairy arms.”

A pertinent question deserves a pertinent response, “Yeah..ahh.. thanks, it keeps me warm. Someday your arms might be hairy too, little girl.”

The town of Kincaid came to be on the prairies of North Dakota in the summer of 1899 for the same reason many towns came to be late in the 19th century in this part of the world. The steam engines that rumbled along the tracks pushing further into the northwest needed water every ten miles or so, and the location that was to be Kincaid was in fact ten miles or so to the west and ten miles or so to the east of the next town.

As was common in those times of westward expansion, the railroad, like a proud new parent, generally named the towns it was responsible for the creation of along its iron family tree. Kincaid was named after Charles James Kincaid, an important and wealthy executive of the Northwest Railroad Company of Chicago, IL. Important, as a result of his wealth, and wealthy as a result of his father.

Charles’ father, Arthur, and his twin brothers, Leo and Lester, had the fortune; some would say dumb luck, of being part of the expansion of the Northwest Railroad Company. Their dumb luck was that each of the three brothers had bought adjacent 2,000-acre parcels of land west of Chicago with plans of filling the land with cattle and becoming great cattle barons. Actually, it was Arthur who bought the land and had the grand idea of becoming a cattle baron, Leo and Lester never really ever had any grand ideas.

Leo and Lester were born six years before Arthur, but Arthur never met either of them until he was 10 years old. Their mother, Willamina dropped Leo and Lester off at the “Illinois State School for the Moronic and Feebleminded,” shortly after her husband, Eldridge, went out for a walk and apparently forgot how to get home. Eldridge’s running off didn’t come as much of a surprise to Willamina for she knew how hard it was on Eldridge, a man of good strong German stock, to face up to the fact he had fathered two imbeciles.

What Eldridge didn’t know was that Willamina was about four months pregnant at the time of his extended walk. He also was unaware that he wasn’t the father of the son he didn’t know his wife was pregnant with, so it’s probably just as well that he kept on walking.

It would have been hard for Willamina to explain why the baby appeared to be of slightly darker complexion, similar to that of the man who did such a nice job painting their house about four months previous, while she and Eldridge were of obvious lily white descent.

Luther came highly recommended as a dandy painter by several of Willamina’s friends she played bridge with every Wednesday afternoon. Willamina knew it must be true because Mrs. Fallon hired Luther to paint her house three times last year, and Mrs. Jeffrey’s insisted Luther paint her fence every single month, with weekly touch ups in between. That Luther could paint all day.

So, Willamina unable to handle the demands of the twins and a new baby all on her own made the heart wrenching decision to leave the upbringing of Leo and Lester to the state of Illinois. That turned out to be more than enough for one state to handle. Trying to educate Leo and Lester proved to be as futile as members of the 7th Cavalry applying lip balm during the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It just didn’t matter. They weren’t stupid, they were crazy and preferred it that way.

The employees of the Illinois State School for the Moronic and Feebleminded never celebrated the 16th birthday of any of those in their care with as much jubilation and outright joy as Leo and Lester’s. At the age of 16 they could be released with the Illinois State School for the Moronic and Feebleminded stamp of approval that they were indeed fit to enter society. Whether they were fit for society or society was fit for them remains of question, either way they were going home.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious and the result of an overactive imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

We humans do a lot of strange things for a lot of reasons. For instance, if you happened to walk into my house at around 10:00 o’clock at night, on no particular night, you might hear a noise in the basement that would prompt you to descend the stairs for a look see.

Why you would walk into my house unannounced at 10:00 o’clock at night on no particular night and creep down my basement steps is strange in itself but we’ll overlook that for the sake of this story.

Besides I have some friends and relatives who it really wouldn’t be that much of a surprise for me to find them sauntering about my house unannounced at an odd hour. However, they might find it strange (or perhaps not) that upon their investigation of the noise from the basement, they found me pedaling my bicycle and watching television with headphones on.

I am a fair weather cyclist and seeing how the weather has been a little unfair lately I am forced to ride indoors. It’s the same concept as the hamster wheel, only my cage is bigger; I have television, and am required to go to the bathroom in a specific location. Women and their rules.

I generally ride about an hour or two and if I had to do it without the distraction of television I wouldn’t do it. So, the most important part of riding indoors is finding something interesting to watch to keep your mind busy while your body works hard to go absolutely nowhere.

All this in an effort to battle the genetic gifts of heart attack and high cholesterol and maybe log a few more years above ground. If I get run over by a bus tomorrow this effort will have been a waste of time and my soul will be eternally miffed.

Since uninteresting to watch programs seem to be the most prevalent, finding something interesting to watch can be a challenge. The other night I found an interesting documentary on the internet about Max Gerson, a German physician from the early 1900s, who developed the Gerson Therapy. Gerson Therapy is an alternative dietary therapy which claims to cure cancer and many other degenerative diseases.

Gerson Therapy requires patients to drink about a dozen eight-ounce glasses of fresh organic fruit and vegetable juice every day. This is roughly 20 pounds of fruits and vegetables a day. As I pedaled I thought, “That’s a whole lotta roughage but if it cures all of these ailments why have I never heard of it and why don’t more people do it?” Yes, I actually said that to myself, and then myself heard the other major part of Gerson Therapy.

The narrator of the documentary began to talk about organic coffee and how coffee was another staple of the Gerson Therapy. “Fruits, vegetables, and coffee–I like all three of those, maybe the Gerson diet is something I should try so I can live forever.” Then the narrator matter-of-factly began to give detailed instructions on how to properly prepare the coffee to be taken into the body a little further south than I am accustomed. A calm setting was suggested. I would suggest foregoing the sugar cubes as well.

I squirmed on my bike seat. Forever will have to wait.

Some people believe the behavioral differences between boys and girls are a result of how they are raised rather than the gender they happen to have slid down the chute with. I’m not sure of the statistical split but I would have to believe the majority of those who believe nurture over nature probably have either no children or have never raised a boy and a girl in the same household.

It just so happens I have two children who were naturally born into separate genders and nurtured in the same household by the same parents. This fact has granted me a front row seat to the nature versus nurture battle and nurture appears to be taking a beating.

The experts who rally on the side of nurture claim we direct our children down gender specific behavioral paths of likes and dislikes through our treatment of them. I believe I could have dressed my son in culottes and blingy Barbie tank tops when he was in his early formative years, and he would still enjoy baseball and army surplus stores. On the flip side I’m pretty sure I could have dressed my daughter in flannel shirts with a Johnny Unitas haircut, and she still would have grown up to love shopping and reading Teen Vogue.

Males and females are naturally different, which is good for many reasons, and people who debate this point should have a couple kids so they’re too busy or enlightened to debate.

You show me a boy who doesn’t love a visit to an army surplus store then I’m not so sure you’re showing me a boy. When we were kids whenever we made it to the big city of Williston, we would beg to go to the army surplus store. I remember on one particular visit my brother and I begged our mom to buy us throwing knives.

What kind of mother would buy two boys who have a history of injuring one another throwing knives? A mother that had just spent eight hours at a Cub Scout Jamboree trying to keep track of a Ford Econoline van full boys and would agree to anything if they would all just shut up and leave her alone. My mother. You hand two boys throwing knives, the pestering stops and they disappear to do things mothers wouldn’t approve of. As a parent sometimes the risk is worth the reward.

So far in fatherhood I have observed the circle has remained unbroken, so I wasn’t at all surprised when my son inquired about throwing stars a few weeks ago. Not only was I not surprised but I was a little excited about the whole matter. So on a recent business trip to Omaha I stopped into the army surplus store I always visit when I’m in Omaha to do some browsing and find my son his first throwing star.

What do throwing stars have to do with army surplus? There are certain things the government likes to keep hush hush.

The barter system can be a useful means of which to exchange your services or goods for the services or goods of another in a manner that benefits both parties. That very system is the reason my wife and I found ourselves in New York City a few weeks ago. My brother-in-law, Mike offered to fly us to NYC in exchange for watching their children for a week this summer while he and my wife’s sister, Kim, take a trip to Europe.

Mike had airline tickets and a place to stay to barter in exchange for my time, which I tend to have an abundance of during the summer months, so it was a done deal. My wife and I had never been to NYC and enjoyed roaming about for a few days taking in a small slice of the Big Apple.

The highlight of the trip for Dawn was ice skating at Rockefeller Plaza. It was enjoyable and while we skated around a bride and groom fresh from the chapel were getting a few wedding pictures taken at center ice and another guy proposed to his girlfriend. A banner evening for cupid at Rockefeller Plaza.

Number one on my list of things to do in NYC was to visit Ellis Island where my great grandfather, Joseph Gins started his life in America in 1909 at the age of 15. It was a wonderful experience and being where he had been so many years before got me a little misty eyed. I couldn’t imagine leaving my home, family, and all I had ever known and heading out alone to the unknown at the age of 15, or any age for that matter.

There was a quote hanging on the wall at Ellis Island from an immigrant who said when she was leaving Germany her mother cried and said it was like putting her child in a coffin. Like my great grandfather, she never saw her mother again. The lengths a parent will go in the hopes of providing their child a better life are extraordinary.

I felt a very strong painful stirring of emotion after reading that quote and thinking of my own children and putting myself in that position. It took some strong people living in some bad situations to make that selfless sacrifice. I’m thankful my great-great-grandparents made that sacrifice and I often wonder what it must have been like in the weeks leading up to their son’s departure.

New York City has a lot to offer, and I am looking forward to another visit someday. What I found most amazing was while you walk through the city you travel through various countries. You’ll find yourself walking through the bustling fish markets in Chinatown, cross the street and the mood, sights and sounds instantly transport you to Italy.

The sights and possibly the smell of the fish market in Chinatown may have been a deciding factor in our choice of Italian dining. My sister-in-law’s stomach, queasy from the rancid omelet I bought her on Wall Street, had to work hard to keep its contents on the down low as we strolled by the sea world armageddon of the Chinatown fish markets. Those Pollocks are tough and she soldiered on through China to Italy.

It was a good trip, and although Mike and Kim’s children may disagree, a good barter.

My son’s hamster, Rascal, went to the big squeaky wheel in the sky a few days ago or wherever it is that non-denominational rodents go.

Rascal was about three years old which is about the maximum shelf life of a hamster. Shelf life is the appropriate term for Rascal as he lived in a glass cage atop my son’s bookshelf. In three years he made two escape attempts but only made it as far as the kitchen pantry both times where he was apprehended nibbling on a bag of potato chips. Both times he gave up without a fight and returned peacefully back to his cage. Someone other than me returned him peacefully to his cage.

If I would have been home alone, I would have just moved his wheel into the pantry for him to work off the potato chips after he had eaten his fill. I don’t touch hamsters on purpose. Besides Rascal tried to attack me twice when we first got him so I was always a little on edge around him.

I remember the incident well. He was knocking off a few laps on his wheel, and I was peering through the glass wall of his cage, analyzing his gait, when he suddenly hopped off the wheel and made a viscous lunge for me. Thankfully the glass held, thwarting his attack and saving my life. I can still see the maniacal look in his beady little eyes as he bounced off the glass wall, gathered himself and made another go at it.

What should have been a highly entertaining experience was quite terrifying. I mean, it should be funny when something runs at you and smacks into a glass wall making a satisfying “thunk” and it falls to the ground and tries it again with the same “thunk.” I would have been laughing hysterically if it had been anything but a hamster. Hamsters aren’t supposed to bum rush humans.

Anyway, that incident sort of put a strain on Rascal and my relationship. So, if he wanted to sneak out of his cage and make poor nutritional choices who was I to get in his way? With his passing I’ll let bygones be bygones and forgive Rascal. I’m sure it was all a big misunderstanding.

Jackson took Rascal’s passing pretty hard and shed a few tears for his fallen roommate and I was sad for Jackson because I know what it’s like to lose a pet. The first pet I cried for was our cocker spaniel, Rufus, that Mom ran over on her way to church. I guess Rufus wasn’t Catholic. Actually, he was fine until Mom backed up to see what happened and ran over him again. Oh, I’m just kidding…he was Catholic.

I think it’s good for kids to have pets, to have something that depends on them for food, water, and shelter. To have something be a part of your life and then die is a good learning experience. An experience I would rather they have with a crazed killer hamster than let’s say, me, for instance.

Rascal was a good pet and it’s sad to see his wheel sit in silence, but I believe my son is a better person for having known him, so I guess, “Thank you, Rascal” is in order.

My daughter wanted to stroll around downtown this weekend and visit a few antique shops, so she and I headed out for some father-daughter browsing. She didn’t ask me to wait in the car or walk a block behind her, so I assumed she wanted me to tag along.

I enjoy antique shops and generally take a leisurely stroll through the shops in downtown Rapid City every month or so. I don’t really go there to buy anything, I just enjoy looking at old stuff. Apparently, I’m not a minority in the “looking not buying” as not much merchandise seems to have changed hands in any of the antique shops in the last few years. As my daughter said, “These stores are more like museums than stores.”

As much as I enjoy antiquing, I always experience a twinge or two of sadness as I stroll about surrounded by things that once belonged to and were most likely treasured by someone else a long time ago. What was the story behind those that gave form and life to these clothes, gazed into this mirror, walked in these shoes?

I enjoy holding old hand tools and feeling the smooth well-worn wood handle in my hand as I wonder about the person who owned them and what they created with them. Did some kid use this bit brace to drill holes in a bunch of car tires on his grandpa’s farm? My brother Jarvis and I can’t be the only kids that did that? I have that very bit brace in my possession and I smile every time I look at it. My grandpa was a patient man.

The children’s toys always get to me too, but in a different way. I look at those mint condition toys, many of which I had as a child, and wonder what kind of sissy kid owned them. Those poor toys never got properly played with. My toys were mint condition for as long as it took me to construct an explosive or find a hammer. My brother and I were very hard on toys and generally beat up, blew up, or burned up most any toy in our possession.

I did feel a slight pang of guilt when I spied a Johnny West action figure in a glass case complete with all his 24 accessories, horse, two dogs (Flick and Flack), and his entourage. The whole gang was there, Jane, Jay and Josie West, Sam Cobra (the villain), and Chief Cherokee and his daughter, Princess Wildflower.

Why did I feel a bit guilty as I looked over this impressive set of toys? The Johnny West action figures were manufactured from 1965 to about 1975 and Uncle Tim had this same complete set when he was a kid. The complete set, in the condition my uncle left it, would probably be worth about $500 today. The complete set, in the condition my brother and I left it, is worthless. My uncle is a patient man.

Poor Johnny, Jane, Jay, and Josie. Their cowboy days were numbered the day Jarvis and Josh were introduced to the West gang. It all started with mean ole’ Sam Cobra stealin’ Chief Cherokee’s horse, which Princess Wildflower happened to be riding at the time. Well, we thought Sam stole the horse but we came to find out later, after we had popped an arm or two off in the name of frontier justice, that he and Princess Wildflower had been seeing each other on the sly.

Jarvis and I panicked and began pursuing all those who witnessed our mishandling of the Sam Cobra case to cover our tracks. They were in the wrong toy box at the wrong time. Somehow though the mint condition Johnny West gang in the glass display case all seem a little melancholy, like they missed out on something. They’re just begging to live a little. To have an arm, leg or head snapped off. To be de-accessorized and terrorized by two destructive kids who were sent to play because they couldn’t watch Hee Haw and Lawrence Welk quietly.

Johnny West… “Pfffft you was gone.”