I was working the 24-hour day watch. Not one of the more exciting assignments. Especially that day. That’s right, it was National Peach Pie Day. Now I’d prefer my own homemade peach ice cream, but pie will do in a peachy pinch.

No pie. I grabbed a chocolate sugar-snap pea fusion muffin (only one left; the pale green and it-might-have-been-chocolate-once-upon-a-time colors were not a compelling draw) from the break room.

One bite and I decided this bakery muffinesque glob might be better served at some junior high “Taste in the Dark” gag. I attempted a quick mouth swish with Ale-8-1. Pre-Coke Zero, that pop was my personal rocket fuel. Speaking of rockets, I better let you in on who I am.

I am W. Norman Boggs, ATIAIC-EIEIO. Code name NorBo. There might be some out there who aren’t familiar with this front-line foreign alien invasion terrorist watch agency. NorBo, Alien Terrorism Investigation Agent in Charge; Farmer in the Dell Division. There. I’ve blown my cover.  

I could have started this story with something like, “A long time ago, in a…” or “Space the final frontier…” Nope. No Star Wars, Star Trek, Galaxy Quest, Space Balls, or Them (Google the “Them” movie…Fess Parker’s bit part got Walt Disney to cast him as Davy Crockett). 

All those? Science fiction. I’m telling a true story here. Well mostly. Have fun separating the wheat from the chaff. I’m telling you about my very real encounter with Marzon, the Walking Giant from The Stars. It happened about 44 years ago in Bloomington, Indiana. Only now am I cleared to talk about it.

I was a student at IU, a dormitory ministry leader, an owner of Prank Palace Costumes, and the manager of Circus World, The Toy Store in the Mall #165, College Mall Bloomington. Whew! All that could indeed make a feller see things, but Marzon was real.

I’m sure any of you who know me at all can picture me as the manager of a toy store. One day, Marzon the Walking Giant from the Stars arrived. His ship was nondescript, looking a lot like any old random 18-wheeler. Brilliant, I thought, as I first spotted him. He snuck in amid the cases of Strawberry Shortcake dolls, Star Wars Yoda figures, and Rubik’s Cubes. Little did I know Marzon was going to rise high in the sky, maybe landing in the front yard of some southern Indiana retirees. At least I think he landed. Okay. The actual story.

My Circus World night crew team and I received our weekly truck with boxes upon boxes of toys. We unloaded and got ready to merchandise them. We had to get all toys in the shipment out on the shelves or in the “Stack ‘em High and Watch ‘em Fly strategically placed piles overnight. All-nighter stocking shifts in the fall weekly and even sooner were common for us.

About 1:00 am, I carried a box out to the aisle. I opened it and there he was. Marzon. Twelve Marzons to be exact. As the Beach Boys sang “Catch A Wave” on our sound system, I pulled out a Marzon box and gave it my best toy store manager eye. Walking Giant from the Stars, huh? It got my interest. Marzon was a vinyl inflatable robot-looking alien about 3-feet tall. He came with a plastic battery-operated base that enabled him to walk. He didn’t walk very well. No radio control. I wasn’t impressed with his base.

Now our middle-of-the-night stocking crew would often get a bit bored and goofy as the clock struck one. Especially true for me. One night we had our Luca Pizza, a favorite, since we mostly horse-traded defective wooden chess sets for pizzas as that mall pizza bastion closed each night-crew evening.

One slice of Luca Pizza left. My overtired brain managed to fire. I looked over at our huge glass showcase featuring all kinds of radio-control vehicles. A few of these vehicles were in the backroom, returned as defective. I opened the showcase and carefully made some space on a premium eye-level shelf. In went the good-sized slice of meat-lovers pizza. I wasn’t done. I went to the back and yanked the antenna and radio controller from a defective Johnny Player Special. I stuck the antenna in the pizza crust and displayed the controller like the other vehicles. Not done yet! I then set about using our work tools to create a perfect Circus World display tag listing “Radio-Controlled Pizza”–$19.99.

The night crew approved heartily. I decided I would leave the pizza in the showcase for the next toy store business day. Surprise, surprise. Made some customers and Circus World employees smile. Okay. This was yet another of my many non-sequiturs. I just can’t help it. Back to Marzon. Oh wait. Just one more.

On another night crew evening, as the clock tolled 1 AM, the five of us stopped for a break. I started eyeing that showcase filled with radio-controlled vehicles again. I stopped juggling baseballs (that was a bit dangerous near the glass showcase anyway, but hey, I wasn’t a bad juggler) to share my new idea with the crew. 

“Pick out a radio-controlled vehicle from the showcase, guys,” I said with a maniacal twinkle. It didn’t take long for us to be admiring each other’s vehicle choices. I chose the aforementioned Johnny Player Special, a sleek black and gold Indy-style racer over a foot long. I planned to win.

“Gentlemen, test your batteries,” was my next command as I opened the sliding glass store door into the abandoned College Mall. The guys by now knew what I was up to. We lined up our cars and got our controllers ready. “On your mark, get set, GO!!!”

All five cars shot forward, careening down the long mall. We were all cheering. Everything was going well until mid-way down the mall we encountered a set of stairs dropping down a few steps to another level. The cars flew off the first step into the air. Sailing over the second step, then crashing hard into the mall floor. Batteries, battery covers, windshields, doors, and mirrors went flying. Though we were certainly loud enough to rouse the mall security guard, he must have been power napping.

I’m sure you’ve guessed where this is going. Up. I called our night crew together. “Let’s see if we can get Marzon to float!” I said. I filled him up with helium. And this time we even resisted the urge to gas ourselves with helium to talk funny. Some maturity perhaps? Nah. Science. Marzon kept his feet planted on the crazy Circus World carpet. He didn’t budge.

I spent the rest of the night re-assembling the cars, replacing batteries, and putting the salvageable ones back in showcase. Yep, I did it with a smile. Our adrenaline peaked, we had a very productive remainder of the night. Okay. This was my last trip off the Marzon path. Back to science. 

Marzon, as I mentioned much earlier in this article, was inflatable. And Circus World Toy Store sold a lot of helium balloons. We created a big colorful display every morning at the front of the store on a very large helium tank cart decorated with circus motif. 

We discovered Marzon’s vinyl skin was a lot heavier than the thin balloons. He didn’t even try to float. I was disappointed but not deterred. “Let’s add some balloons!” After more than 20 balloons, Marzon began to lose the shackles of Earth. Lift off!

But Marzon just floating around the store wasn’t that exciting. “Let’s launch him,” said I to my not-nearly-NASA middle-of-the-night Circus World Mission Control staff. So out we went into the College Mall parking lot, mostly dark and empty at 1:30 am. We were in a circle with Marzon in the middle, wearing his 20-plus very large helium balloons. 

“Wouldn’t be great if he comes floating down in some granny’s front yard? She might think the aliens are coming!” said I. A stretch to be sure. We counted down from 10. Then 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and Marzon headed back to the stars in the darkness. We watched until he had risen out of sight, then congratulated ourselves on our feat of aerospace engineering. Alien expert virtual astronauts we became. And not one of us a Purdue student!

All we had left was our imaginations and our worknight that became lots of fun. My dream of Marzon casually floating down onto a Southern Indiana retired couple’s front porch may or may not have materialized. My mental picture of them scrambling up fearful, knocking over their sweet tea, convinced they were being visited by an alien just didn’t gel. I checked the Bloomington Herald-Telegraph and the Indiana Daily Student for reports of alien sightings every day for a week or so. We never heard from Marzon again. 

There are many more Circus World Toy Store tales to tell. The tale of the arrival of a semi-trailer filled with returned toys from many Circus World stores was an adventure. Buying a live mouse from the mall pet store also caused some gleeful havoc. And the crazy challenge at Halloween of owning a costume shop while a Circus World Toy Store manager caused some interesting situations, too. The most fun I’ve ever had that I could call work. The other stories for another time. For now, this is W. Norman Boggs (NorBo) Alien Terrorism Investigation Agent in Charge; Farmer in the Dell Division signing off. I am smiling. And I’m still having lots of fun however I can. As Toby Keith’s song goes, “Don’t Let The Old Man In.”

Bill Boggs.

70 next month. 

Still playing.