Imagination is more important than knowledge...

....a wise man once said, and I try to stay inspired to feed my imagination and in doing so I expand and grow. I collect things to keep me stoked on life. Some times I get a bit obsessed. I often buy back toys that I had years ago, but this time I was digging thru my old things and found a survivor for my youth. My old Major Matt Mason. He is pretty beat up. Wires poke out of his rubber legs. I peeled off some of his uniform paint when I was young. My mom bought him at a yard sale for me along with his space crawler, jet pack, a bunch of other MMM accessories, and my fave part, his white space helmet with transparent yellow visor! This toy was from the 60's and it was the early seventies by then. My mom would give me toys now and then that I assume were passed down from my uncles now and then. I had "The King Ding" which was a robot from a line of robots called "the Ding-a-lings" (I researched it) and a Marx wind up "Mr. Machine" Robot... one day they were gone, just like my Matt Mason collection, sold I assume at a yard sale my mom had (we had sold our house and were moving that week) and off to see new frontiers, but somehow Matt himself made it out alive, and there he was on my self and very dusty. I had some funds from a job left over so I went to the interweb for some fun. I located an old crawler that had battle damage from space missions and presumably the motor no longer worked, but the price was nice, and who knows....this may have been my old actual old crawler. I had been bidding for a long time on these, but this time the planets lined up and I won it. It was such a deal that I had a bit left over and decided to try for a helmet too. It took about 2 more months to find a complete helmet (it was a bit scratched, but that was what I wanted "period correct!") and last week it came in the mail. Sometimes getting back these toys are too pricey and really, I don't want to clutter my studio all up, and I was trying (awhile ago, when I had a better income) to buy back the toys of my youth.... well you can't always go home as they say, and back then I was trying to fill and endless hole with things I thought I had to have back. A friend had said to me then, "someday it will be you alone in a room full of toys..." now I can say "not bloody likely" to that, but some days being a consumer is o.k. This time I don't look back, but celebrate my recent return to form and continued successful path. For a bit I thought about restoring Matt's paint and fixing him up but I settled on leaving him with his patina. Not many remember this short lived toy because he was part of the space race and they wanted him to have a "clean" space feeling, and when they introduced "enemy space monsters" to the toy line people freaked out and they stopped production. Tom Hanks is said to be making a movie now and "The Outer Space Men" toy line (the bad guys) has been re lived with pricey new re issue toys. Will Matt make it back to Earth? I am glad my Matt stayed in my orbit. Now I just need some computer chips for my Steve Austin's bionic arms (we can rebuild him... we have the technology). If my mom had not cleaned out my room I would not have had this much fun (so Mom... thanks for making my youth fun! You are out of this world and really far out!) Life's a Gas! Keep your head in the clouds and keep reaching for the stars!