Antonio Pasin, the creator of the Radio Flyer wagon, named it so because of his fascination with radio and flight. What if he’d liked toast and swimming? Or concrete and bombers? Or burgers and fries? The mind reels.The old #18 Classic Red Wagon shown here hauls firewood to the house. Its minimal, primitive bearing surfaces are showing their age. The steering is getting stiff and the wheels howl in a discordant shriek as it is tugged around, objecting to its load. Every once in a while I think of retiring its old bones, then I reach for the WD-40 and it’s good to go for another season. Besides the new ones aren’t made in Chicago anymore, but probably in some squalid sweatshop in China. I’ve seen the new ones in the stores and they don’t seem to be as dangerous as ours—the steering can’t go completely to 90° causing the wagon to tip, and there’s no way to get a child’s fingers smashed in the joint between the handle and undercarriage. I mean, what fun is that? Take the danger out of little kids’ lives and they grow up to be wusses whose first instinct is to reach for a lawyer instead of a Band-Aid.
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