Friday was a good day

Part of my Sunday ritual growing up was the visit to Payless and Woolworths after Mass. I would go there with my Grandparents and they would stock up on all of life’s necessities: Kleenex, sardines, Tang, Ben Gay, diet 7up, 1lb bars of Hershey’s chocolate, etc. One thing I could always count on is my grandfather buying me a toy at Payless. My two favorites at the time were the Airfix HO scale soldiers and the Mego action figures. Both cost around $2.50 which was low enough for my grandpa not to have to give it a lot of thought. One particular Sunday I made my way to the toy section at Payless and lo and behold, were the coolest figures I had ever seen. The Knights of the Round Table -Ivanhoe, Galahad, Lancelot, the Black Knight, and King Arthur, sitting on the shelf in all their glory. My grandfather must have seen the look of awe on my 10 year old face cause he bought me all five that same day.
Years have passed, and so have my grandparents. My childhood toys have long been lost to that place where toys go when boys stop thinking about Hotwheels and start thinking about girls. But on Friday I was at a thrift store with my wife, when lo and behold, I again found the coolest figures I had ever seen. They were all still in the box with the original price tags on them (Toys R Us- $2.96). They cost a little bit more than they did back then ($15.00 each), but I still had the same smile on my face from 1974 when I took them to the check stand. Friday was a good day.