Feb202009
Blame it on the Matchbox!
Filed under General, Photojournalism, humor by bob hammerstrom at 2:13 pm
They aren’t anything new. You find them in every American home, at yard sales and in all the retail stores. They’re often found plugging the vaccuum cleaner, inside Christmas stockings, or you may step on one in the middle of the night. They seem to breed by themselves, overflowing the toy box. And what is this pesky varment you ask?
I used to buy these (Well, Santa really did) for my son when he was a toddler. I’d pick up a pack of five and give one to him when he had done something good. What he really didn’t know was that dad had picked these up because he was a Matchbox Maniac!
Yup, I’ve come clean now, but I still have hundreds of these cool little cars and fire trucks hanging around. Of course, I’m saving them for my grandchildren, you know!
I played with the Matchbox firetrucks, police and emergency vehicles up through my junior high years, setting up spot news scenes and rescues with the tiny trucks. It was a way to enhance the imagination, and keep away the boredom.
I practiced making the siren noises that my high school classmates in Whitehall never let me forget. Looking back on it, I wonder why I didn’t become a firefighter. I wonder how many of those guys still have Matchbox fire trucks around their houses!
As a news photographer for the past 20-something years, I blame my habit (I mean profession) on the Matchbox cars. Although I don’t consider myself an ambulance chaser, my ears perk up when sirens whiz by, and the adrenaline flows when I go to a big fire.
Don’t worry when your son leaves one in his pants pocket, and it gets run through the laundry (car wash). After all, he just might become a newsphotographer some day!
-Bob Hammerstrom
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