Nights Before Christmas and a Missing Johnny Seven

This is an excerpt from the memoir Eisenhower Babies: Growing Up on Moonshots, Comic Books, and Black-and-White TV.

By Ronnie Blair

One Christmas, probably 1962, snow blanketed the hills and covered the narrow road leading to the house we rented. My sister, Shelia, and I peered out the windows at our personal wonderland, excited at the thought that Santa Claus would soon visit our tiny abode deep in the Kentucky mountains. Our younger brother, Ricky, was too young to grasp the full magnitude of what was happening, but he would be the first that Christmas Eve to benefit from Santa’s generosity.

Mom and Dad kept reminding Shelia and me that we needed to go to sleep if we expected a nocturnal visitor from the North Pole, but our overhyped minds refused to cooperate. As the clock ticked later and later, my parents’ frustration grew, since they probably wanted some sleep themselves.

What occurred next remains a mystery. Something—we weren’t sure what—was happening on the front porch. Did Shelia and I hear a sound? Did Mom and Dad tell us they heard someone rattling around out there?

My parents crept toward the door, and I followed, unconcerned about the rush of freezing air that would penetrate my pajama-clad form when one of them tugged the knob to reveal the night’s secrets. Something lay on the other side of the door, but it wasn’t a person. Sitting on the porch was a spring-mounted rocking horse, Ricky’s gift from Santa. I looked to the snow-covered road. Were those reindeer hoof marks leading away from our house, or small drifts transformed into something more magical by a four-year-old’s overactive imagination? Dad carried the horse inside as Mom reminded Shelia and me of a crucial Christmas Eve fact.

“Ricky is asleep,” she said. “That’s why Santa Claus left something for him. If you expect Santa to come back with your gifts, you better get to sleep yourselves.”

We raced to bed. I tumbled beneath quilts and shut my eyes tight to will myself into a slumber, praying that Santa would not lose patience and give up on this house where two wide-awake children dwelled. Soon, sleep did overtake me, and as the final minutes of Christmas Eve ticked toward Christmas morning, Santa returned to finish his job.

Christmas was childhood’s most magical time, whether we watched breathlessly as the Christmas tree lights flickered on for the first time each year or searched the night sky on Christmas Eve to spot a red glow that assured us Rudolph was on the job at the head of Santa's sleigh.

Not every Christmas proved a winner. In 1966 I longed for a Johnny Seven, a toy gun made by Topper Toys and promoted as seven weapons in one, with such glorious functions as a grenade launcher and an antitank rocket. It was just what any 1960s child needed to defend the backyard from encroaching enemy forces. On Christmas morning I awoke early as always and sped to the living room to feast my eyes on my Johnny Seven. But unless my eyes were deceiving me, the Johnny Seven was not there. I searched desperately beneath the tree, behind the couch, and anywhere else Santa in his haste might have inadvertently placed it.

My first surmise was correct. No Johnny Seven.

Instead, my presents included a toy chest/shelf for storing assorted toys and books, a plastic bugle, a Fairy Tales book with Puss in Boots prominently featured on the cover, and a toy rifle that shot a puff of air. The rifle came with bubbles, so you could blow a bubble and then blast it out of existence with the air that burst from the rifle. Really, it wasn’t a bad haul.

It just wasn’t Johnny Seven.

I am not sure why Santa failed to deliver. My parents were usually good about making sure I received whatever toy I placed first on my Christmas list. Perhaps Johnny Seven was a hard-to-come-by item that year, the must-have toy for too many boys across the nation. Luckily, I was a stoic eight-year-old (at least in this case) and hid my disappointment.

Despite the Johnny Seven letdown, Christmas of 1966 was not without its merits. That year, the animated version of the Dr. Seuss classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas debuted, giving children something fresh to watch along with year two of A Charlie Brown Christmas. Also, Kentucky enjoyed a white Christmas, never a guarantee. The snow began falling on Christmas Eve, and by Christmas Day the neighborhood and the surrounding mountains resembled the winter wonderland that singers always promised but the skies infrequently delivered.

Santa Claus redeemed himself a year later, although by then I no longer believed, made cynical by 1966’s unfulfilled expectations. This time, instead of a Johnny Seven, I longed for a Captain Action, a GI Joe-size action figure who could transform himself into any one of several superheroes. An extraordinarily accessorized toy, Captain Action boasted nearly as many clothing options as Barbie as well as a secret hideout and a car that doubled as a boat, allowing the good captain to take a spin around your bathtub. 

As befitted the hero he claimed to be, Captain Action rescued my Christmas spirit, arriving under the tree with his car, his hideout, and his Batman and Spider-Man costumes. Outside of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars, he was probably my last real toy, and Captain Action and my imagination enjoyed numerous adventures before he took a final bow and was shoved into a closet to lie dormant, if not forgotten, as the years sped up and left him behind.

Ronnie Blair is author of the memoir Eisenhower Babies: Growing Up on Moonshots, Comic Books, and Black-and-White TV.