My mother said that I loved that thing and didn't want to leave it to go home. So she and dad tried to find to find one for me.
They could not find one, but did find a Play Skool Take Apart Truck. With much scrounging mom was able to get one for Christmas for me in 1958.
It cost them $18.00 back then. To give a sense of context, my dad was making $360 a month back then working for a rail road.
I was able to hang on to the truck and keep it complete for many years. When I left home it stayed at home with my baby adopted brother who played
with it. He was not as careful to not lose parts.
After he grew up, my parents had a house fire that burned absolutely everything, ...However, it turned out the toy chest was stored outside in a shed.
The truck was in the toy chest.
So, I reclaimed my truck. It was covered with 55 years of dirt and grime and it look like some chemical, maybe grey paint was splattered on it. It was missing a lot of parts.
Here are pics of the way it looked a few weeks ago.




I wanted to restore it so I started looking for a parts truck. This is what I found on ebay.



If you look at the details, you will see some things that are different, like a different number of bolts on the side. I was
hoping to use the lower side panels, but it turned out the bolt patterns was different. However it supplied some parts I needed.
I can't believe these wooden bolts would last for 55 years.

Here is my truck disassembled...

After scrubbing with a general purpose cleaner, it didn't cut the grime. So I started using rubbing compound. I was able to
remove the grime and grey paint and not mess up the original paint. It took a lot of elbow grease to clean things up. I didn't want to
do a full restoration. I wanted to leave the normal play wear on the truck, so I didn't sand it down and repaint it. Where I personalized it with
a "B" and inscribed "Bobby" on, are still there.
Here is what it looks like now.






A few years ago, I found on ebay, the take apsrt plane that started it all.




Shall I continue with more "Toys of my Childhood?