Just a couple of hours ago Sean and I were talking about the stuff that's still being stored in Mom and Dad's basement, including a bunch of Lego, including the Legoland Fire House set I received as a birthday gift in the early 1970s. Coincidentally, one of the YouTubers I follow posted a video about that very set recently, and I just ran across it tonight. I can almost feel the plastic in my hands!
The trucks were sold separately as well: I have the ladder truck and the rescue truck. I quickly converted them to resemble the vehicles from Squad 51 and then drove my parents mad with endless sirens as Roy, Johnny, Chet, and Captain Stanley raced around the house to perform daring rescues and put out threatening fires.
ReplyDeleteThe ladder truck provided my first hinge and turntable, which were acutely revolutionary pieces (pun). Before that, I was limited to orthogonal vehicles, the Space:1999 Eagle perhaps being the most durable. I remember being filled with jealousy by the LEGO sets that my friends had that had more of the exotic pieces. Only sometime later when I had two hinges could I ever think about a glorious X-Wing.
Today, when I look at the heavily-engineered LEGO pieces that are available now, I both wonder at how themed LEGO like the Star Wars sets channels kids into narrowly-directed play (something that the old generic LEGO sets didn't seem to do, since you could transform the firehouse into swans), but also at how easy it would be to finally steal some of those great micro-hinges and turntables for my collection, since I am today so much larger, stronger, cleverer, and faster than your average eight-yaer-old.
Ah yes, now I remember this.
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