I could hardly wait for the mailman to deliver my "Genuine Imitation Norden Bombsight", for example, or "authentic Aviator's Wings" to pin on my favorite brown leather bomber jacket".

But the biggest box-top promotion of all came in the summer of 1945, when Wheaties offered a series of model airplanes that really flew! For a nickel and two box tops, you got a pair of warplanes,(my favorites a Flying Tiger and Hellcat) printed on heavy cardboard, ready to cut, fold and then glue into three-dimensional model planes. During assembly, you glued a penny=

in the nose cowling for weight. With a good toss, your completed fighter plane flew like a son-of-a-gun! Fourteen different models were offered in the series, including a Japanese Zero, British Spitfire, German Focke-Wulf and a whole squadron of assorted American planes including the Mustang and Thunderbolt. Each week, my pack of friends and I rushed to the market to rummage through the Wheaties boxes on the cereal shelves after hearing that a new model fighter plane was being offered.

Another bowl please! Who could blame us? With each commercial message, announcer Frank McCormack warned, "When they are gone, they'll be gone forever". My parents wondered if we'd ever get tired of eating "The Breakfast of Champions". On shopping day, Mom would ask, "Why don't we get Cheerios or Rice Krispies this time?" "We can't" I'd say. "I promise I'll eat my Wheaties.I'll eat' em all!"

Of course, I was already putting away bushels of the stuff. But I seemed to be enjoying it, so my mom always bought more. After the war, the model airplane mania was finally grounded. Wheaties began offering baseball cards and other premiums and I started eating other cereals. But I never got over those model planes.

Nowadays I'm still nuts about those great old war birds. That's why I attend air shows that show off those old airplanes from World War II. Recently, while attending an air show in Santa Rosa, California, I passed by a sales booth, and I could not believe my eyes! There for sale were five of the same Wheaties model planes I used to collect when I was a kid. I was astonished to see the asking price of $25 a piece and in it's original envelope! Most of the spectators crowded around the display table were excited as I was. Some just simply shook their heads in disbelief. I headed home that day clutching four precious planes to my chest.

That very night I assembled the Flying Tiger just as I did 56 years ago! There was one major difference, though. I had to run out to the Walgreen's Drug store and exchange five pennies for a nickel. (Today's pennies, made with lighter alloys, are no longer quite heavy enough to give maximum performance). A few minutes later, nickel in place, I sailed that little model plane out into the moonlight. And you know what? It flew like a rocket!