I guess I got a toy Texaco station like this one (picture snagged from ebay or somewhere) for my fourth birthday. I really liked it a lot. When we moved from Knoxville to Chattanooga, we didn't have room to take it with us (a likely story!) and I left it behind in a closet.
The Christmas after we got to Chattanooga, I got another one, but this time with yellow cars, which I actually preferred to the previous red ones. I got to help put it together, and that's when I learned the pronunciation of the word "cupola".
Update from June 18, 2026
My mom gave me an envelope full of important papers going back to the earliest days of my life, and in it was this kind note from my mother's brother, Uncle Jim. (I also had an Uncle Jim who was the husband of my father's sister.) I had not realized he was the giver of this excellent, much-appreciated gift.
