You never know where a collection might take you

Showing off my collection of presidential figurines sometime during the Johnson administration.

In the attic of our family Homestead house are a couple of boxes of my old toys, including my Hot Wheels collection and several dozen feet of Hot Wheels track, a Johnny Express remote control big rig truck, what’s left of a Batman utility belt, a Thingmaker from Mattel and even one of those electric football games.

I liked them all and have good memories of playing with them (maybe not the electric football game — it never performed like I thought it would or wanted it to). But maybe the most worthwhile “toy” I had was a collection of figurines.

Over the course of the 1966-67 school year, the year of my academic debut at Homestead Elementary, I acquired a set of presidential figurines, from George Washington to Lyndon Johnson, the 36th president and president in 1967. That’s 35 figurines in all — there’s only one Grover Cleveland, who was both the 22nd and 24th presidents.

You got the figurines by shopping at Cooper-Martin grocery store, which was over on West Avenue — we always called it the Truck Route — where the Crossville Chronicle is now. Cooper-Martin was just south (toward Stanley Street) of Kroger and at one time was also the home of Bohannon’s Big Star, where I learned to cut up chickens and grind hamburger during a grueling two-week stretch in the butcher shop. Mr. Bohannon was merciful and let me go.

But back in the day we always shopped at either Cooper-Martin or Kroger. We usually went to the grocery store on Thursday afternoons after my mom got her hair “fixed” at the beauty shop. The presidential figurine giveaway was the draw for us at Cooper-Martin for at least 35 weeks — the store gave away one per week.

I can’t explain why I liked those figurines so much. Each was molded from hard plastic and stood about 2 1/2 inches tall, on a flat base that identified the president, his ordinal number and the years he served. I also had custom styrofoam “steps,” sort of like a stature hall, on which to display the presidents.

I’d take each one and study it — top to bottom, front and back, who he was, when he served, his hairstyle and his clothing. Each one sent me to the encyclopedia to learn more. I checked out books about presidents from the library at Homestead. From there I’d know more about the period when they served, even if I couldn’t quite comprehend the events happening then.

I learned lots of presidential trivia by studying the figurines and the men they represented. I learned about George Washington and the two-term precedent and why it was a big deal, both for Washington and the country, and for Franklin D. Roosevelt to ignore the precedent. It’s all moot now as a president is constitutionally limited to two terms after ratification of the 22nd Amendment in 1951, six years after Roosevelt died in office during his fourth term.

Even now, I have the most trouble with presidents of the late 19th century, after the Civil War and through the Gilded Age (quick — who was the 23rd president, between Grover Cleveland’s terms?). I know them by name but the order often trips me up. Once I get to Theodore Roosevelt and the 20th century, I’m golden again.

It was through studying the figurines that I learned about Grover Cleveland and his serving twice, as the 22nd and 24th presidents. (The 23rd president was Benjamin Harrison.) I learned that the sixth president, John Quincy Adams, was the son of the second president, John Adams. I learned that WIlliam Henry Harrison (the ninth president) — “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” — died about a month after inauguration, with John Tyler ascending to become the 10th president.

I was always a little excited about presidents with Tennessee connections — Andrew Jackson (the seventh president) and the Hermitage, James K. Polk (the 11th president) had been governor of Tennessee and had a house in Columbia and Andrew Johnson (the 17th president) had also been governor and was from Greeneville. Not exactly a presidential hall of fame lineup but a point of pride for a young Tennessean.

Mostly though, I just learned who the presidents were. I’d never heard of Millard Fillmore (13th president), or Franklin Pierce (14th president) or even William McKinley, the 25th president and who was assassinated in Buffalo,N.Y., in 1901. And most of those from the late 19th century.

I was also interested in the clothing and hair styles as the presidents marched through time. It’s a little hard to tell but the last president to wear a powdered wig and knee britches was the fifth president, James Monroe. (The seventh president, Andrew Jackson, may be wearing knee britches but more likely has his pants tucked into knee-high boots. You might expect Jackson to buck tradition.)

Jackson’s successor, Martin Van Buren, wears long pants but is largely bald but with natural white hair around the sides and back — and his signature mutton-chop sideburns. He wears what amounts to a bow tie, a vest and a jacket with tails. That was pretty much the style the rest of the 19th centruy, through McKinley, who’s dressed in largely the same style and holding a Lincoln-style stovepipe top hat.

Theodore Roosevelt wears a long tie with his vested suit and long jacket, signifying the turn of the 20th century. By the time we get to Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president, the modern suit-and-tie is the common uniform of presidents. FDR holds to this trend with the exception of cape draped over one shoulder. (Interesting too is that FDR is standing. We know he went to great lengths to hide that he used a wheelchair to get around.)

My sister likes to recall that I could recognize the president from the back of the figurine, which I wasn’t sure I believed until recently. I had the figurines out, lining them up in order, when I realized that I was picking up some of them — correctly — without seeing the face. I could still recognize many of them from behind. Crazy. I often can’t remember why I came into a room but I can recognize presidents — these figurines anyway — from their backs, their head and clothing.

The figurines were produced by Louis Marx and Company, a leading producer of toys throughout much of the 20th century. Louis Marx, the company’s founder, had met and befriended then-General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and produced the set starting in the 1950s while Eisenhower was president. The set concludes with Richard Nixon. (I don’t have Nixon — I never did and I’m not sure why. But it’s likely the promotion at Cooper-Martin ended while Johnson was president, otherwise I’d have Nixon too.)

Marx’s company produced all sorts of plastic figures and toys, including Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots and the Big Wheel. Marx sold out in 1972 to Quaker Oats, who owned Fisher-Price and who anticipated a synergy between the two toy markets, a synergy that never materialized. Marx was sold in the late 1970s to a British manufacturer and was closed by the early 1980s.

Others have made figurines of presidents after Nixon (Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama, Trump and Biden) but I’ve never felt the urge nor need to seek those out. I’m comfortable with the set I have (except that I would like to have Nixon, since he would complete my original set).

I’m thankful that my mother made sure that I had a complete set (as we knew it then) and saw fit to keep that set through the years. Those presidents continue to inspire.

rpodgraham@gmail.com