It is time for a reminder about one of our country’s special days to fly the flag of the United States. June 14 this year marks the 241st anniversary of the resolution of the Second Continental Congress adopting the flag in 1777.

It also is the 243rd anniversary of Congress’ adoption of “the American continental army” in 1775. President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation establishing June 14 as Flag Day and in August of 1946 an Act of Congress established National Flag Day. It is not a federal holiday, but some states have established it as a state holiday.

So hope you fly your flag this Thursday and remember to do it also 20 days later for Independence Day.

An interesting coincidence is that the current President of the United States will celebrate his 72nd birthday this Thursday – Donald Trump, born June 14, 1946.

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This past week I became aware of another anniversary, albeit much less important to most of us than Flag Day. It has been 50 years since an iconic toy of the Boomer Generation was developed: Hot Wheels. Toy maker Mattel introduced its first sixteen, die-cast car models on May 18, 1968.

Eleven of the 16 were designed by Harry Bradley who had worked as a designer for GM from about 1962 to 1966. He designed custom cars somewhat as a sideline and by 1966 had moved to Mattel.

One of Bradley’s designs from 1964 had led to the Dodge Deora, a full-size custom “car” based on a compact Dodge pickup and displayed at the 1967 Detroit Autorama. The Chrysler company leased the Deora to show with other concept cars, but the Deora was eventually bought and put into storage. In 1998 it was brought out of storage and Bradley helped restore it for the 50th anniversary of the Autorama in 2002. The Deora was sold at auction in California for $324,500.

The miniaturized Deora Hot Wheels was one of the 16 Hot Wheels produced by Mattel in 1968. Hot Wheels was an immediate success. Hot Wheels predecessors, Matchbox toy cars, were primarily models of everyday cars rather than customized and had been successful for 10 years or so before the introduction of Hot Wheels.

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I tend to think that The United States has always been the leader in mass producing toys, but for Matchbox toys, the United Kingdom was the originator in 1953. Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith were not related but as good school friends, who had also served together in the Royal Navy, formed an industrial die-casting company in 1947.

The company, Lesney Products, took the name by using the first three letters from Leslie and the last three from Rodney. Jack Odell joined the company shortly after its formation. Shortly the company had a request to manufacture parts for a toy gun and began doing die-cast model toys.

Queen Elizabeth II was coronated in 1953 and the Lesney company made two sizes of miniature replicas of her Royal State Coach. The smaller size scale model coach eventually sold over a million copies. As it happened, Odell had a young daughter who wanted to take a toy to school, but the school’s restriction was that it had to be small enough to fit in a matchbox.

So Odell designed a miniature road roller that fit the specifications. Two other designs at the time, one for a dump truck and another for a cement mixer were cast making the triad Matchbox’s first release. Many other models were miniaturized and marketed to make Matchbox the largest manufacturer of die-cast small toys in the 1960s. Ultimately the Lesney Company became a part of Matchbox International Ltd and was bought out by Mattel.

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As a member of the Silent Generation – that generation between The Greatest Generation and The Baby Boomers – I really did not identify with either the Matchbook group or the Hot Wheels group. By the time that Matchbook toys were beginning, I was past the stage of playing with small cars, trucks, etc. Playing was more along the lines of tag football, pickup softball or baseball, some tennis, swimming, and so on. I vaguely remember Matchbook toys showing up in stores and noting how those toys looked more expensive than what I had experienced when a bit younger.

The model miniature toys that I experienced were primarily under the brand of Tootsietoy. Tootsietoy not only produced small scale cars, trucks, and other vehicles that probably related more to boys than to girls, the company also produced some items for doll houses and also even some of the token pieces used in Monopoly that marked a players location on the Monopoly board. The company began operations about 1930 and has continued into the 21st century.

Originally manufacturing was in Chicago where the company is still based, but manufacturing has moved primarily to Asia. ootsietoy produces about 40 million cars per year.

I think my last Tootsietoy models were actually ships, a battleship and a cruiser which went to an auction sale about three years ago – probably sold for about 25¢. Who knows –maybe in one of my many boxes stored around here I might have a couple of other survivors?

Until next time: Oh, Fiddlesticks!