Injun-uity

There were stairs from the kitchen that went down to the cellar. It was huge with three distinct areas. One part was like a garage with a big sliding barn-like door. One part had the lawn furniture stored in it and a big upright piano. No one played the piano. Where did it come from? Why was it there? Maybe it was from the previous owners. The rest of the cellar had my father's workbenches and tools. I had a blackboard and would "play school" there. I was going to be a teacher. I also used to play with my Injun Joe cards there. They came in the Shredded Wheat boxes which was the only cereal my father would eat. I, on the other hand, ate Ranger Joe's. Injun Joe, Ranger Joe, who knows? It turns out that the cards were a ploy by Nabisco to get children to eat what was considered an adult cereal and Shredded Wheat as the sponsor for a radio program. I never fell for the cereal part but faithfully collected those "injun-uity" cards. They had all kinds of indian lore and crafts. I didn't remember, but read, that at first Injun Joe's horse didn't have a name and they ran a contest where you could submit a name along with a boxtop. They named him Fury. And so there was Hopalong Cassidy and his horse Topper, the Lone Ranger with Silver and Tonto with Scout and Gene Autry with Trigger and Dale Evans with Buttermilk and Injun Joe with Fury.