My Die-Cast Life.

In December of 2025, I will be releasing a book called My Die-Cast Life. It is a small glimpse of my life as presented through a series of vignettes centered around my playing with die-cast toy cars wth my friends in the years roughly 1968-1971. The stories began as a creative way to sell these cars on eBay, talking about what the cars represented rather than simply listing the year and model. It became something more, and I hope you will enjoy the book. In the meantime, here is the first story that sets the tone for the entire thing. Please feel free to comment.

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Hot Wheels Red Line Custom Barracuda in Blue

The year was 1968, or so. My mom was taking me on a trip to a local toy store, a wondrous, glorious, cavernous mecca of toys called Kiddie World. We weren’t going to get toys, though. Kiddie World also sold swimming pool supplies, and my dad had just had an above-ground pool sunk into the ground in our back yard, and my mom, who had now become the primary caretaker of this folly of a swimming hole, was now given the responsibility of maintaining it. That meant buying chemicals and sweeping out the thousands og bugs that decided to breathe their last in our pool.

I knew the chances of my getting a new toy were slim, but just walking through Kiddie World was an experience that would leave any kid breathless so I went along gladly and hoped that my mom might take pity on me and maybe reward me for my good behavio. I had once tried the being a brat in the store until my mom bought me someting and that wound up in a memorable and spectacular failure that I learned never to push my moms limits ever again.

I loved toys, like what kid didn’t, but I mean I LOOOVED toys. My favorite toys were the ones I could make my own adventures with. GI Joes, Captain Action, MAJOR MATT MASON! Don’t even get me started on Major Matt Mason, a space toy line released in the 60s and designed to capitalize on the real-life space race. I could probably write half a book on Major Matt Mason and the moonscape I set up in the side yard of my house, where I ripped up something I thought was weeds to expose the dirt to make it look like a barren moonscape only to  later discover it was something my mom had planted, probably zucchini. I got in big-time trouble and got yelled at in two languages.

It took me a long time to want to eat zucchini again, but this is, of course, the first of what will be many digressions.

Anyway, to get to the pool section, you had to walk past one of the larger toy aisles (these guys were not dummies) and, of course, my eyes darted around to see what was new. My mom was literally dragging me to the back of the store mumbling, “No toys, we gotta get da chlorine and da shock and da acid…” She sounded like some sort of mad chemist who was going to create a gas creature in our pool that would devour the neighbors, whom she swore up and down had killed our dog Lassie. She was so focused, looking at a list in her hand, that she let go of mine and let me wander freely through the giant aisle. My eyes started to dart around, losing track of my mom and looking at all the new toys that had just gone onto the shelves. GI Joes, Barbies, Green Army Men, Chatty Cathys, Outer Space Men. I had gotten lost in them all, thinking about the terrains and stories I could have in the now barren side yard with any of these toys (except for the Barbie because, well, because).

I’m not sure how long I wandered the aisle, but it seemed like my mom had materialized from the back with a shopping cart filled with pool chemicals, nets, plastic hoses, and some giant brushes, not a toy in the bunch. “C’ma, we gotta go, da pool is  green and you fadder wan’ me to cook steak for some American friends.” By now you will have noticed a specific speech pattern from my mom, so this is where I tell you that I am a first-generation American, my parents were both immigrants coming here (separately) from Italy a few years after the end of World War II. My first language was Italian, and that’s what we spoke at home for as far back as I can remember. Then one of my parents’ immigrant friends—who also had a kid trying to learn English—told them that they needed to start speaking in English around the house or I was going to be at a disadvantage when I got to school.  So overnight, my parents went all in. They spoke English to me, made me answer in English, and even told their friends they had to do the same. The plan was solid: get me ready for school so I could talk to teachers and be conversational with the other kids. In reality, the plan had flaws. It was like learning to play the piano from someone who doesn’t have fingers – you might be able to play something, but it is not going to sound right. I found the most helpful thing at the time was watching TV and later translating soap operas for my grandmother, who absolutely refused to speak english.

Anyway, back to the toy aisle, I was standing in front of something I had never noticed before, a display of die-cast metal cars called Hot Wheels. They were cool, all muscle car looking and sleek, and basically a 1/64th scale piece of something resembling freedom. I had a car in my hand, a Custom Barracuda. My eyes were wide; this thing was still in the package and I had mentally placed myself in the driver’s seat of this sporty-looking car with red lines on the tires. My mom snatched it out of my hand and tossed it in the cart. It was amazing because I hadn’t even asked her for it yet. That is when I noticed the extended packages of orange track that were stacked below the car display.

“We need this too…” I said, being ballsy and going for broke “... the car won’t work without the track!” I said, figuring that if I believed it, so would she. Without hesitation, my mom grabbed the box of track and tossed it in the cart. This was easy, too easy I thought, and I filed this strategy away for future use. 

We got home and my mom went straight to the back yard to mess with the pool. I went into the front room (that’s what we called a rarely used living room with a hardwood floor and a mish-mash of semi-antique furniture that my Zia Elsa cast aside). I looked at the box of track to figure out how to set it up. I didn’t know about creating a ramp yet and just laid it out flat so it created an orange expressway between the couch and a recliner. I took the Barracuda out of its package, put it at one end of the track, and gave it a push. I added a sound effect as it rolled to the other end of the track seemingly on its own power.

“ZOOOOOOOMMMMM!”

The Barracuda got to the end of the track, hopped off, and continued in a straight line until it hit the front door. In that moment, I was transformed. The sight of how easily this car glided along its track, the determined way it rolled off the track and kept going, stopping only until it hit a wall, was like nothing I had ever seen before. This car was no mere toy; it was all the possible futures I might have—a car, a BOSS car, one that almost drove itself. I heard my mom stirring in the kitchen, having finished whatever swimming pool alchemy she was working on.

“Company comn’, pick dis up and put it away!” she commanded. Having learned the hard way what could happen if I left my toys out when company came over, I snapped to it and hustled my newfound favorite toy ever into my room, planning my next move to get more cars and more track.

Monday rolled around, and I decided I was going to show off this new coolest thing ever to my friends, so I grabbed the Barracuda and stuffed it into my pocket, figuring I would show it off at lunch to my friends who would always marvel at the food I brought to school because it was filled with cured meats and delicacies that they would never see in their own homes. A salami sandwich was nothing compared to a nicely made mortadella and mozzarella sandwich with oil, vinegar, and tomatoes. My mom worked in an Italian market (well, it was just a market in an Italian neighborhood) and so my lunches looked like they came from the best restaurant in the city. Growing up I took prosciutto and melon for granted and was stunned how much of a delicacy it seemed like to my friends.

So lunchtime comes around and my friends are gathered around me to see what I had in my bag and were sizing me up for a possible trade. Moorpark Elementary School had a time-honored lunch swap ritual where people might trade lunches just to escape the monotony of eating the same thing every day. Everyone knew that there was no way I was trading my coppocola and ricotta sandwich with lettuce, tomato, and an olive oil drizzle for a PB& J. I once tried trading, just to make friends, but I regretted it and never did it againSo, to get their minds off my sandwich, I pulled the Barracuda out of my pocket. “Look what I got on Saturday…”

“Hey, Hot Wheel,s” interrupted my friend Michael, a big kid who was sometimes my best friend, “nice, a Barracuda!”

I was a little surprised. I thought I had discovered this all on my own, but soon I found I was the one who was late to the party as people gathered around to talk about the cars they owned and how they might one day like to drive, and also how Hot Wheels were WAY better than Matchbox cars.

“This one really moved down the track I set up…” I didn't even get a chance to finish my sentence when a noticeable murmur swept over my friends.

“Track?” Michael asked, “You have track?”

“Yeah, my mom bought it for me when…”

“Your mom bought you track? And she let you set it up?”

“Uh, yeah, why”

“My mom wouldn’t let me set up the track in our house because she said it would ruin  the floor.”

I could see my mom saying the same thing, but she was more obsessed with the swimming pool that day and perhaps didn't think the normal mom thoughts when I started playing with a die-cast car in the living room. The bell sounded, signaling the end of lunchtime, and as we walked back to class, someone asked, “Hey, can I come run my cars on your track sometime?” I did not have a ton of close friends other than Michael in school at that time, and they were all, for one reason or another, a little afraid of my mom.

“Yeah, maybe you guys could come over on Sunday after church, and I could get my mom to make us some snacks.” I can’t stress enough that, regardless of whatever fear my friends had of my mom, they had a healthy respect for what that woman could do with a snack tray. They were all excited to come to my house on a Sunday and race their cars, and thus was born what I would call The Maywood Avenue Sunday Race Car Derby and Lunch Jamboree.

Now all I had to do was get my mom to buy me more tracks, more cars, and make lunch.