Like most kids growing up in the 60s, I had some really cool toys. This included more than a number of Nylint and Tonka toys for outdoor play. Some were handed down from my brothers, others were exclusively mine.
It was a distinct advantage being the youngest of four boys. I didn’t have to share these with anyone, except friends I would occasionally invite over. Day after day I would play with them on my vast interstate that was under the tree in the front yard. No dirt roads for me – all cement.
When a really big dig was necessary, I’d head to the spot in front of the clubhouse in the backyard. A large hole had already been dug there in an attempt to reach China one day. I don’t think we made it more than three feet before that got old and we went on to something else.
And, like most projects, we didn’t bother covering our tracks. The hole remained open for as long as I can remember, getting slightly wider and deeper during my famous Tonka construction excavations.
Some kids, I suppose, would just grab a trencher and go at it. That would never do in my world. Instead, the area had to be blocked off and the machinery had to be lowered into the pit with a crane. I didn’t have a crane, but I did have a piece of chain with a hook that served admirably in place of a real Tonka crane that I coveted, but never got.
No worries. I had a bulldozer, trencher, payloader, two road graders and a dirt sifter along with two or three dump trucks. I had more equipment than the Renton street department did at the time.
These were all day affairs. I would spend hours digging in the dirt as realistically as possible. The dirt would be picked up by the payloader or trencher, then deposited methodically into the sifter to be cranked up into the dump truck and hauled off. In my mind, this was all real, so shortcuts could not be taken.
When the bad weather hit, we would store my equipment on the large bench on the patio and in the planter next to it. This gave some measure of protection against the elements, though eventually they all got rusty.
Occasionally, Bob Core would come over and play with my construction equipment. I think I mentioned the time that I broke a truck over his head accidentally. We didn’t play together for some time after that.
But the Vineyard boys lived up the street from me and eventually Doug and I became friends. He would come down and we would play with the construction equipment in the back and drive the pleasure vehicles around on the cement roads up front.
On one particularly sunny summer day, I couldn’t wait to play with my Tonkas. I went to the patio to get them. They weren’t there. Someone had stolen them.
I got my brother Brian. He said that he had seen some shadowy figures walking up the street that night with big boxes. They went toward the dead end of the road.
Unbeknownst to my mother, we headed off to see if we could pick up the trail. There wasn’t a Tonka or Nylint to be found. My brother then spotted a something out of the corner of his eye back off the road. We trudged back behind one of the neighbor’s houses to an old dilapidated garage.
We invited ourselves in. There was a glint of yellow sticking out of one of the boxes. It was my payloader. We looked in the other box, and there were five or six of my other vehicles. On each of them the perpetrator had scratched a large “D” into the metal.
Now, you’d think if you’re going to steal from a neighbor, you’re smart enough not to hide the goods in an open garage. Second, you’re not stupid enough to etch the initial of your first name into the stolen goods, trying to make them appear to be your own.
Doug wasn’t that smart and yes, he was that stupid. I thought we should call the cops. Brian didn’t think that a good idea, because the Vineyards could wake up any moment and relocate the stolen items. So he just picked up one box and told me to grab the other.
As we went to pick them up, however, the plot thickened. Underneath the Tonkas was some mail. Lots of mail. From our neighbor’s mailboxes. It seems we had stumbled onto a bigger crime scene than we thought. Even at our young age we knew this was a major crime.
We left all the mail there and headed back home with the Tonkas, passing right in front of the Vineyard’s home. I think Brian was hoping they would come out and make a big fuss so he could punch one of them.
When we got home, we told my mom about the theft and about the mail. She immediately went next door. Not to the Vineyards, but to the Smiths. Bill Smith lived next door to our house and he was our mailman. She told him all about the stolen mail.
I don’t know what happened with the mail theft issue. But I do know that the family moved away a short time later. I later heard a rumor that Doug was in prison somewhere. Obviously he hadn’t learned his lesson about stealing vehicles during the great truck heist of NE 28th St. I did hear though, that his cell mate made regular “male” deliveries to him when the lights went out and the gloom of night descended upon his dreary little life.
Out on the Treasure Coast, amazed that some of my old Tonkas are going for a grand on eBay. Doug was on to something I guess,
– Robb