Urban Archeologist: Coincidences are Motorific!

You may think that all I do on the weekend is hunt for treasure, and you’d be right, right-in-the-middle of my fantasy. Actually, when I am not picking I am ferrying my daughter to softball games and practices.

A typical Sunday for us is to find a couple of good sales close to home and failing that, stop by the Elephants Truck before it’s time to head to her practice session. The trick is to cut it as close as possible to maximize the hunt. This usually requires some kind of timepiece or, lately, a small wind-up timer. Neither she nor I usually find more than a trinket, but this time I snapped a picture of something I hadn’t seen in 40 years.

An unopened Motorific slot car and bonus track sections (see image). The buzzer attached to the timer sounded and sent us toward the car.

I remembered how the Motorific Racing sets occupied my seven-year-old brain for a time in the late 1960s. I was too young to know how to ask for them, but an older neighbor had a full set up in his basement, and it was magic.

The slotted track accepted cars and trucks that would run around curves and straight-aways, off jumps, over bridges, making a loud grinding sound from a tiny motor and 2 “AA” batteries. The detail combined with the marketing flicked all the switches in a young persons mind that wanted to control the world around them – just like grown-ups.

There we were in the early afternoon navigating a life-sized Motorific track, traveling the back roads from New Milford to Brookfield center. Along the way we were frustrated to see signs for two separate sales that gave little indication of where they were. To our combined disappointment we had to forgo the search to keep from delaying the start of softball practice – ahh… first world problems.

Leaving the coaching to adults who know what they are doing I threaded my way back determined to find one of those sales. Amazingly, we had driven right by the sign at the end of a driveway. When there is nothing visible from the road, a few extra signs, or one large one is a good idea. Once inside I had no idea what I’d find.

The home was a beautiful old Brookfield property, built by a member of the Hawley family around 1900. It was a regular tag sale and I could find no scraps of local history or a good story other than the home’s history. Then there was the free pile…I’ve written about the free pile before but it bears repeating.

Free piles, which often contain items that fit no category, or may be un-valuable (read: the seller couldn’t come up with a price), can also have items that have been added as the day stretches on to move them more quickly.

As my eyes scanned this pile I immediately ignored the outdated exercise equipment and half open garden chemicals to find a large box that was closed. At first view I quickly recognized the plastic shape of toy nostalgia gold for the second time in an hour.

There it was, the entire Motorific Torture Track from 1965! The box contained 75 pieces of track, accessories, four cars and a book of instructions. WOW!For no money I could touch and hold that which I could not ask for from Santa so many years ago. The next challenge is how to explain this golden find to my nine-year-old softball star wishing to control her world oh so badly?

In 1940 it only cost a penny to mail a postcard; today I find the messages written on them priceless.Take a look at this note from a real name-dropper.

Greg Van Antwerp is a Brookfield resident and blogger, who can be found on the weekends in search of a good “dig” or a good story.  You can read more about his adventures by visiting his blog.