Oh my gosh, the memories!! I LIVED for that catalog to arrive, and had my red pen ready, baby. My brothers must've had that yellow GI Joe vehicle, becuase I have vivid memories of driving my Barbie's to the prom in it!! (Oh, the blasphemy, i know) As a matter of fact, I think a couple of Joe's were their dates....

Wow - this really is a flash from the past! I remember looking through the Sears and Penney's Christmas catalog and almost drooling!

Thank you for this memory. My dad was overseas (I'm a Navy brat) most of the time when I was growing up, but I don't remember any Christmas that was sad or not full of toys from my mom and Santa. To this day (and I'm now in my "middle-earlies"), I don't know how my mom raised my three sisters and me.

I always enjoy reading your posts, and want to say thank you and Merry Christmas.

My hubby has the GI Joe he got in 1964 with the footlocker and his dogtags. Cool, huh?

Dear Rwsparkle, How much do you want for the GI Joe, and footlocker, and dogtags? I'll buy them for Greyhawk. I feel very sad because he did not get one.

Talk about memory lane! I actually got that yellow GI Joe dune buggy in the picture for Christmas, around 1973 or so. As you point out, post-Vietnam Joe was a little more "sensitive" back then....

Grannylu,
Don't you dare. We still have all Greyhawk's Hotwheels you gave us and his old baseball cards, and not to mention 4 boxes of comic books and a few bears and misc. toys! And we love you for it, :) but now we have also my son's old Hotwheels and baseball cards and Ninja turtles, not to mention my daughters Barbies and My Little Ponies. I get a blast of Christmas past everytime we move. And they are always happy.

When my son was in first grade the kids teased him because he still believed in Santa Clau. The more they teased, the more adamant he got that they were wrong. Finaklly he had enough and said he couild prove there was a Santa Claus. How one kid says. Well, my son replied, my mom is "poor" and we always have lots of fun things under the tree on Christmas morning! When he told me about his encounter and his final reply, I didn't know whether to ,laugh or cry. I chose to hug him instaed. My son was no fool, lol!

GI Joe was awesome! I didn't have all of them, but I had several (some kung-fu grip, some a bit older), including the "talking commander" ("This is going to be rough... can you handle it?").

Also had some accessories... I remember the jeep with a mounted gun and towed searchlight and a mobile search vehicle. I also recall wanting a GI Joe obstacle course (can't remember what it was named), but never got it... so one of my brothers helped me design and build my own, with an erector set, lincoln logs, kite string, etc.

Ah, memories... good times. :)