Earlier this week, digging some old disks out of storage led Tim to break out some old Mac SE’s from storage as well. Seeing the SE’s, I went in my garage and found and pulled out the second Mac I owned- a PowerBook 1400/CS. Digging out those old computers made think about some other older things I loved when I got them.

A blue ’55 Chevy Hot Wheel with an opening hood. I was a little kid when I got it, and a lot of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars came and went, but I always loved that particular car. I still have it, but it somewhere forgotten to me at home.

Hot wheel tracks in general from people dumping them at the old Albuquerque flea market. My brother and I liked to run tracks off of a bed top or a tree branch to drive the 9 million cars down.

Hardy Boys books. Also treasures as flea market finds, they were a summer vacation staple on indoor days.

Anytime we could order a book or two from the annual Scholastic books sales during elementary and middle school was monumental. The weeks between they day you turned in the order form and money and the day the books showed up in the classrooms were full of anticipation.

Sweatbands. You were cool if you were a kid with sweatbands in the late 70’s, and clearly athletic. And had greasy hair.

A bike with motocross handlebar grips. I never had a motocross style bike, but I did have a bike with those kind of grips, and again, having those made me feel oh so cool.

Lincoln Logs. Legos were cool, but there was something about building a log house like Daniel Boone or Davey Crockett. It was retro. And you could use your plastic cowboy and indian figures in the buildings you built.

Girder and Panel Set. I must have been in 3rd or 4th grade when I saw an advertisement for one of these, and I was mesmerized. With little plastic pieces that looked liked like steel piles and beams, you built a building framework- and then you attached clear plastic plates to each exterior level that covered the skeleton with windowed walls. It was amazing to play with, and one of favoritest Christmas gifts ever.

Code Name: Sector. It was a cold Christmas morning at my grandparent’s house in Kansas when I unwrapped this beautiful game. You against a computer, you had to find and destroy enemy subs in open sea. The game came with mini sub figurines and two grease pencils you used to note and track your prey. I don’t know how much I bugged my folks for this game, but boy, for me, it felt like the coup of the century. And I think I even played with it for more than a month!

Radio Shack’s Electronic Football and Electronic Basketball handheld games. Who needed a Sega or a Nintendo Gameboy when you could throw long bombs and drain threes on these simplistic sports consoles. Arrow up, arrow down, arrow back, arrow forward, shoot! So simple, so analog, and so gratifying. It was always nice running up the score one one of these games if you could.

Jarts! I mean, come on- a metal spike stabilized by three aerodynamic fins, thrown across the yard at a ring! What could go wrong? But man, those we more fun than horseshoes to chuck around.

The Radio Shack Battery Club. How cool was that, that you could go into any Radio Shack and pick up a 9-volt battery once a month, which you inevitably needed because your folks gave you small radio at some point when you were a kid, and you’d listen to that thing every night by or under your pillow as you were falling asleep.