Training wheels

My father was such a sentimental sap. We always begged for a train set for Christmas, and he finally delivered one, one year: a War Train. Oh, how seasonally inappropriate it was, zooming around and around under the tree. It had a locomotive that shot missiles, a box car that flew into pieces when bombed, another box car whose top opened up and fired a rocket, and a flatbed car with a satellite mounted on it that would go whirling up into the tree when deployed. We obliterated most of our glass ornaments with these yuletide weapons, but the memories live on.