Where are they now?

TIN TO ASHES, TIN TO DUST............. OR, maybe not. These Cracker Jack real tin toy prizes may be awaiting archaeological digs, tin being more impervious to break-down than paper. The paint is what I worry about most.

Look at that Cracker Jack-eating boy! How very long did such a novelty remain at the forefront of a child's consciousness? Was it a brief moment on an ephemeral plaything stage, and then an unremitting curtain rang down on it? Was it soon forgotten, consigned to a junk dresser drawer? Of did it gather pocket lint for being carried around unexhibited for so long?

I would like to think the answers are no. I want to believe in the longevity of the popcorn-eating boy, whose jaws, eye and ear wobbled about when the master wiggled the magic lever. I want to believe in the long interest that toy enjoyed. That it got traded over and over, thus accumulating many more miles of use, more and more amusement, moving about in concentric or ever-widening circles. A seemingly endless giving of mirth and merriment, to several unrelated children.

Or let us speculate that the original prize-finder kept the candied popcorn-eating boy for himself and played it to death. Maybe his mother and father became irritated at the constancy and perpetuity the toy held with their child and said, Put that thing away!"

"RIGHT NOW!"

I want to think that when his mother abruptly reached for it, he popped it in his mouth. And swallowed it.