Philadelphia Athletics pitcher Andy Coakley, quoted in The Big Show: Charles M. Conlon’s Golden Age Baseball Photographs (p. 21): “It was September 1 [1905], and that was Straw Hat Busting Day in the major leagues. The custom died with the retirement of Babe Ruth. Rube Waddell was going around destroying straw hats. I had a pretty expensive skimmer which was in fine condition, and Waddell was waiting for me. As he ran for my hat, I backed up the aisle. He lunged. I struck him with my bag. He slipped and landed on his shoulder.” This kept Waddell from pitching in the World Series where his A’s lost to the Giants.

What the station wagons of the fifties do to me is tap into my adult susceptibility to vintage advertising, prompting fantasies about putting on a Pendleton, lighting up a pipe, and driving my family through the Northwest evergreens. What the station wagons of the mid-seventies do to me is remind me of real life childhood vacations before seat belt laws, when you could freely roll out sleeping bags in the back, set up a smorgasbord or play croquet.

I bought this Kinsmart brand 1955 Chevy Nomad toy after spotting it by chance at a Walgreens in Albuquerque. I looked up the company and was disappointed that they didn’t also have a 1972 Ford Country Squire family wagon, white with wood panels and a red interior.  But this will do nicely.