What I Got For Christmas, Vol. 2

If "Strange Change Lost World" machine ranks as my all-time fifth-favorite Christmas present ever, number four has got to be G.I. Joe...especially the one of him as a Astronaut complete with his very own space capsule!

I also loved playing G.I. Joes with my brothers and friends. REAL G.I. Joes, not those quarter-sized wannabes that they offer kids nowadays. I can still remember my first Joe...a grizzled, bearded Marine with a pull string that would bellow forth such gung-ho Marine speak like, "Cover me! I'll get that machine gun!" when you activated it. So, when they introduced an Astronaut G.I. Joe, it was only natural that I wanted one.

As a child of the 60s, I was a huge fan of the U.S. space program. I lived, breathed and ate NASA. How much of a geek was I when it came to our nation's space program? Enough to be somewhat disconcerted by the fact that when I first came face-to-face with my Astronaut Joe I couldn't get over the fact that he was sporting a Project Mercury-era capsule and space suit while wearing what was so obviously a Project Gemini EVA chest pack, just like the one Ed White wore on his Gemini IV space walk. Those imbeciles at Hasbro! Didn't they know?!? Oh ya...I was a BIG TIME space geek. And I loved this toy...despite the incongruity of Astro Joe's garb.

My twin sister was more partial to Barbie. Every now and then I'd include one of her Barbies in my G.I. Joe scenarios. "G.I. Joe comes back from a space mission" or "G.I. Joe on shore leave". The end result was always the same: G.I. Joe and Barbie would 'wrestle'. I was too young to know what they were supposed to do while they were wrestling, but I knew it was something that I shouldn't be play-acting with two dolls...even if they lacked anatomical correctness.