Dear mid-60s Buick owners who cruise down memory lane,
There is a cute posting on the Hemmings blog about a line of vending machine toys that could be bought at rest stops turning the 1950s:
https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2018/01/19/the-childhood-joy-of-mechanical-servants/As the author Jim O'Clair writes:
"I can remember commuting from Albany, New York, to Springfield, Massachusetts, every Thanksgiving as a child and traveling the NYS Thruway and the Massachusetts Turnpike to get there. Being part of a large family, we sat in the rear-facing third seat of our Ford Country Squire station wagon, and we knew that inevitably one of us seven kids would at some point during the trip need to use the facilities at one of the rest areas. . . . . In anticipation of this eventuality, my older brother and I would take a quarter or two (a week’s salary!) from our allowance, cubby-holed away in our piggy bank, or somewhere else where it could not be “borrowed” by the other, and hope that we would have to stop along the way. When we did, we would both make a mad dash for the Mechanical Servant vending machines that were prominently displayed in the lobbies of these waystations."The rest of the article describes the toys that could be purchased in those vending machines and Jim O'Clair even managed to save a few so there are some pictures.
If you had a road-trip as part of your Thanksgiving tradition, this piece should definitely bring back some memories. . . . . .
Enjoy! Edouard
