Playing The Slots Ain't What It Used To Be

There were toys that every boy had like army men and Matchbox cars. Then there were toys that only a select few had and the rest of us dreamed about like gas powered airplanes and slot cars.

After years of slot car envy, I finally saved up and bought a used HO scale set when I was eleven. I had been “hired” by a retired teacher in the neighborhood to do outdoor chores such as mowing and raking. The money was good at $2 per hour so I couldn’t understand why my friend Gary would give up the job and pass it along to me.

As it turned out, he wasn’t giving me a job, he was getting rid of one. After two weeks of well supervised yard work, I was ready to pass the same thankless job onto another friend. I did leave with about $40 and quickly spent it on the slot car set.

My “new” set was made by Aurora in the early 1960’s and was sold to me by a 17 year-old neighborhood kid who drove his real car like a slot car. The cars and track and accessories were dumped in a large box but I was thrilled just to have a set for my own.

For those who are unfamiliar with slot car sets, the road to enjoyment could be paved with frustration. First, the track had to be built. Most layouts looked more like the high five interchange than Daytona because every single accessory and track in the box had to be used. Step two involved the tedious process of connecting and testing the tracks to eliminate dead spots. Finally, the cars had to be reassembled and cleaned and oiled before they could even complete a full lap.
Kids with ambitious dads had permanent track layouts that looked more like model train sets. My friend Gary and I settled for the basement floor with the constant threat of destruction by Duke, his German Shepard.

We spent countless hours playing with our slots car sets and devoted almost as much time building new track layouts. There was no Playstation or cable TV so slot cars could fill a long winter day better than any other toy in the house.

Many years later (but a few years too early), I bought a big slot car set for my son. He eventually grew into it and then quickly grew back out of it when he started driving his own car. It had been stored deep in the closet ever since -until last weekend.

In the name of research, I pulled out the box and set up the old slot cars one more time. My friend Barry joined me and we tinkered with the track and cars until everything was running smoothly. Then we sat back down and watched the football game and never really got back to it.
I realized that it never was about the competition. There was no neighborhood slot car champion when we were kids; we didn’t even keep score. The real fun for us was in the building and tinkering.

I packed up the slot cars tonight and placed them back into the closet next to the model trains. Like many things in that closet, I have no need for them but no desire to part with them either. It’s comforting just knowing they are in there – for research purposes of course.