Coop's Corner

Thursday, September 17, 2026

Some Old Stuff and The Mighty Tonka Company Movie - 2026/09/15

Last weekend friend Richard and I attended the drag races at Rock Falls Raceway over in Wisconsin. I'll include a couple of photos and some 'music' to start things off.....not the main thrust of this Post however.

Before the races I met Gary who'd camped across the river in Maiden Rock. We rode together to River Falls to gather with a few friends....I didn't stay long after saying hello and left for the dragstrip.

Gary's camp on the shore of Lake Pepin....

I thought this Corvette looked simply evil....intimidating standing (sounding) still.

Well, that's enough of that. We had fun, the ear plugs made it all possible.

While Richard and I were visiting in between races, his slot car setup/hobby came up. I believe that I responded with, "oh. Aurora". He mentioned his track, highlights of his layout, the cars and how much fun he was still having sharing his setup with friends. We had a small set (now long gone) but until recently, some of our cars were still in mom's basement. When we were cleaning out the basement, numerous cars and accessories were sold online.

That evening, a random photo just happened to show up on my phone, an image gathered from my huge collection 'pool' of old photos. My brother and I playing with our new Christmas present in the basement....an Aurora slot car track.

I shared the photo with Richard and he quickly responded with "Tonka Toys". Actually in the photo, the only Tonka product was the yellow truck with backhoe. The yellow green semi dump truck was Structo, a competing toy manufacturer. The Case 930 tractor an Ertl toy, from Dyersville, Iowa. The blue/grey Ford 4000 tractor a Hubley. Even I'm impressed with what I remember about these toys!

Upon seeing the yellow Tonka, Richard mentioned a friend's effort producing The Mighty Tonka Company Movie. The following two images are lifted from David Howell's website describing the 'Mighty' film he's dedicated his efforts to produce.....

Hearing Richard's enthusiasm about his friend's project took me back in memories and more than a few points in time...points spanning over 60 years. By the time the Christmas Tree photo above was taken, my brother and I had amassed an already impressive Tonka truck collection. Before our last one arrived....first a red/green dump truck, our oldest, later a self propelled dual axle dragline, an orange dump truck/trailer/crawler tractor. There was a tan pickup truck with topper pulling a horse trailer. We had an airport tug that pulled luggage carts on the runway. I know of all these and was reminded of them over the last decade because they were all in mom's basement, all in pristine condition which is the condition I auctioned them at, all online.

By my 9th grade year, playing with the Tonka's had ceased. Our Vocational unit at the end of Junior High sent us out on various field trips to sample some of the world's possible life careers. One of the 4 or 5 field trips that I signed up for during that week was to Minnetonka, home of Tonka Toys, a western suburb of Minneapolis. We visited the manufacturing facility, toured the shop floor, watched metal being stamped, assembled, painted and packaged.

Until a dozen years ago or so, I'd not thought about (or seen) Tonka trucks... Then, helping to clear out mom's basement, the toys returned to my world. I learned about reasonable values, especially values with toys in perfect shape in perfect original boxes (mom saved our toy boxes because mom saved boxes). So over the course of a year or so, toys were dusted, rinsed, packed up and dropped off for Priority shipment.

Fast forward to 6 years ago, one of my tasks while still working as an employee of a machine tool company was to train and program CNC tools for our customers. A quickly growing manufacturing company had moved in to the old Tonka Toy facility, they with modern machine tools spread throughout the old sprawling complex. I spent numerous days with more than one machine and multiple operators facilitating their manufacturing. Though I didn't really remember any details about our 'careers day' tour, waves of nostalgia worked me over each time I was in the facility during training.

The Tonka Toys just wouldn't let go.

While we're on that Career Week during 9th grade topic, another tour that I was on visited the Minneapolis Moline farm machinery factory on Lake Street in ...... Minneapolis. It just so happened that one of our cousins from across the river in Bay City, hauled 'green' sand from the Bay City Sand Company almost daily if I remember correctly. These were bags of sand, hauled to Minneapolis from cousin's truck, the sand used in the sand casting process to produce these two-cylinder engine castings, distinctive for the Moline tractors of the 60's and 70's.

On our class tour of the factory, we went through the foundry area where the workers were busy with the cylinder molds. I stepped aside and asked them if any of them knew my cousin, Eldon.

"Everybody here knows Eldon....we're expecting him this afternoon." That was pretty cool.

The G900....this one like my uncle's. Of all the tractors he had and that I used for field work, this was my absolute favorite. I'm lucky in that the guy that works our neighbors' property has one like it. For all I know it IS the tractor I spent so much time on. A slow running, non-turbo'd 6 cylinder. The 900's sister, the equivalent Oliver tractors spun faster and whistled with their turbo charged 6 cylinders.

That's all I've got to say about that.....and most anything else right now.

Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)