A thread to "Wax Nostalgic":
 

Anyone out there remember that website "Forgottenfigures.com"? Anyway this guy use to pick a figure or vehicle or playset that he got when he was a kid and describe the circumstances of how he got it or why it was memorable to him. For istance I remember when he talked about his HAVOC - he lived in Indiana and he was sick so he couldn't go with his Dad & brother to the Indianapolis 500 race that particular memorial day of 1986 like they usually did or something and his mom & him went to the local TRU instead & he got the HAVOC that he had saved-up for and went home and just remembered playing with it in his dry house that rainy May day while his Dad & brother were at the car race. That kind of stuff...

So, I thought it'd be interesting to set up a thread on this site where anyone can chime-in on a particualr Joe (or non-Joe) toy that sticks-out as special in their memory of a fun time in their childhood - I know I always enjoyed reading his takes on stuff.

I'll start it off I guess:

I got losts of memories of this sort of stuff, but I'll start with the BIGGEST haul (and more importantly the most unexpected) of my younger days:

It was Christmas 1985 and my Aunt & Uncle had gotten me 3-4 shirt-box sized packages (we all know as kids that shirt-boxes, mean clothes, which translates into....dissapointing (usually) Christmas or Birthday gifts). So, I opened the first one with little hope of a cool toy, and sure enough - there was a shirt or sweater or something, but then when I held it up for the "show us what you got" obligatory photo-op...... a Joe fell out!!!! My Aunt had put a carded Joe in the folds of the shirt, so there WAS a toy INSIDE the shirt - like a reverse Trojan Horse! That was so awesome and uinexpected to find Alpine, Shipwreck, and Bazooka inside of 3 shirtboxes.

I also scored Tele-Viper, Snow Serpent, Eel, Barbecue, and the first 3 'Noks wrapped the traditional way. My "big gift" that year was the TTBP and I also got Frostbite & the Snowcat either that Christmas or 2 months later for my 9th Birthday. So, after the gifts were all unwrapped and the adults went into the kitchen to prepare Christmas dinner I remember having a grand ol' time unboxing everything on the orange high-pile living room rug and having some Christmas show or special on the old dial-tuner TV on the metal-legged TV stand that got 3 channels back then. I was allowed to keep my new Joe-palooza set up in the Living Room over by the cement/brick fireplace hearth for another week or so until after New Years was over and it was time to head back to the 3rd grade....

So that's my "shirt-tale". Quite a lucky, fun, memorable Christmas that one was!

The year my brother and I got the Flagg for Christmas. My parents had it hidden in the family room and brought it out as the last gift. A couple days later my Mom had to take us out to spend our Christmas money due to the amount of cussing my Dad was spewing trying to put it all together. While we were at Target my Mom noticed I kept loading stuff into the shopping cart. When she tried to tell me I didn't have enough money for what I was buying, I opened my wallet(one of those velcro ones they used to give away at baseball games) and showed her I had way more than she thought. When she asked how I got it I told her her brothers kept handing me $5s and $10s all Christmas night just for telling them they were my favorite uncle-yes, you have to BUY that title in my family-and they were trying to best each other.
That Target has now been converted into a church, but everytime I drive past it I smile remembering that Christmas.

Cool story! Do you recall anything specific that made it's way into that shopping cart with "uncle money"?

Unfortunately no, I just remember my Mom's reaction as being like "well, okay".

I remember that in the mid 80s I saw my favorite figure (Crimson Guard) was available and I had to get him. I hit as many toy stores as my mom would drive me to to let me look to buy it at (back when they were like around $3). There was one TRU in particular that I got really fed up with and started to go through a whole freshly stocked section of GI Joes to find the CG while it was still being stocked. When it wasnt found I started to practically interrogate the poor stocker as to why I cant find my favorite figure anywhere. I think I was arguing for a while and ended up just getting a matchbox police car and an Interrogator figure that day. Ironically about 2 decades later I still never got one. I have a bunch of the modern era ones though to make up for it. Thats the most complete memory I have left, and I use to have the Flagg, Terrordrome, Rolling Thunder and Defiant and lots more growing up that I barely remember just owning. Oh to still have any of those left. I think I really only have less than 10 original figures from when I was a kid before I started slowly collecting again as a older teen+. So sad.

Shipwreck
 

I still remember when I got two of my Joe's in 1984/85. At the time, my older brother and his buddies had all of the earliest Joes. I only remember having Gung Ho. Don't remember where I got him from.

Christmas 1984 I remember walking down the stairs to a fully assembled Rattler with Wild Weasel in the cockpit and yes Storm Shadow at the rotating gun. Set up on it's landing gear. I wish someone took a Polaroid. I thought it was for my brother, but it was mine. This was the door opening on my infatuation with Joes. Remember all of the Rattler's missiles? I think I lost them after a few days.

The other story was at Kmart-where many of my toys came from. (Along with Hills and Gold Circle.) One day I walked in and they had a metal grated bin jammed full of figures in the middle of the toy isle. Funny that we didn't care about the condition of the boxes at the time because they all must have been ruined. I had just about anyone to choose from and I selected Shipwreck. I don't know why, I was 7. Afterward, I remember my brother complaining "why didn't you get Quickkick?" He said something like karate fighters were "cooler," and I felt terrible. Shippy didn't have a backpack or many supplies except for Polly I guess. But as I watched the cartoon, many episodes featured Shippy and I remember liking his personality. He became one of my favorite Joes. Now looking back I'm happy I bought him.

Wow TWO good stories! So, Santa gave you your first ever Joe-Dio-Pic to look at in person (before the internet) that Christmas morning! Cool - I never had anything pre-assembled like that for Joes (I did have a non-electric pinball machine pre-assembled one Christmas morning though) - that would have been fun!

As for Hector Delgado - things happen for a reason sometimes in the toy isle.... :)

At Christmas, My father always put things together and threw away the boxes. I don't know why. Even my First Nintendo Action Set was set up-no box left.

I think it was 1984 that means i was 6 and my dad and i were hanging out in brooklyn i don't remember why maybe going to fly a kite by the river or something and we went to toys r us in sheeps head bay for the kite and my father surprised me with a skystriker. when we got back to the car (a 1971 Chevy Impala) I remember that my dad let me take out Ace and play with just the figure.