When we first moved to Fort Worth from West Texas, my father told my brother, sister and I that we could all bring one toy with us that could be kept out in the car. Everything else, he said, had to be packed up in boxes and taken in the moving truck.
My sister brought her Kid Sister doll and my older brother brought his Erector Set. I took my Batman action figure with me, because I knew that even if I did not have any of my other toys, I could have hours of fun with him.
When we arrived at our new house, we all went around exploring where we would be living, and my brother and I both got out our toys. He started to build something, and I pretended that my Batman action figure was jumping all around the house and learning the lay of the land.
I would have him jump up onto window sills and look out into the yard. I would have him jump up onto the sink and look around the counters and cabinets. I would talk for him in as deep a voice as my six-year-old throat could muster, saying I really think I'm going to like it here, much to the amusement of my mother and father.
I then went back to my bedroom where my brother was still building things with his Erector Set, and I asked him if I could use something he had already built. He said that I could, so I used my Batman action figure to climb up and down it and do all kinds of things.
My brother was even kind enough to build something that looked like a robot so that I could have my Batman action figure fight with it, and, of course, Batman won. It was so much fun playing with him and creating so many different scenarios for him to get into.
I had always been a fan of the show Batman. My brother favored Spider-Man, but I always liked Batman, because it was Batman that had all of the cool gadgets. I remember asking my mother for pieces of thread to tie around my Batman action figure so that I could swing him from things the way he did in the show.
I had hours of fun with my Batman action figure on those first few days that we were moving in. It took us a while to unpack everything, so Batman was pretty much all I could play with, but I never got bored. It was probably my favorite toy growing up, and I can't imagine what I would have done if I had brought another toy on that move.