Show and Tell: Bulletman

How D-Day, pinball, G.I. Joe, and college basketball combined to create a unique keepsake.

Show and Tell is an occasional recurring feature of Inconspicuous Consumption, with most of the entries contributed by the site’s readers. Today’s installment — which is very timely! — is from reader Nick Kissoff. You can see additional Show and Tell posts here.

By Nick Kissoff

Today is Friday the 13th, which means I’ll be carrying Bulletman in my pocket.

Bulletman is a 30-06 rifle cartridge casing from World War II, with a fake bullet inserted in the casing end and a VFW mini-screwdriver and bottle opener attached on a small chain. It came into my possession in 1965, when I was six years old, upon the passing of my maternal grandfather. According to family lore, he brought the shell casing back from Normandy as a souvenir from the D-Day invasion and then kept it as his good luck charm.

This keepsake stayed in my dresser drawer until 1976, when I began my freshman year at the University of Toledo. A bunch of friends and I often played pinball in between classes, and one of those friends remarked at one point that the ball was moving “as fast as Bulletman” — a reference to an early-1970s G.I. Joe sidekick character. For reasons I no longer recall, I retrieved my grandfather’s old lucky charm soon after that and began to use it as my lucky pinball charm. In light of the bullet casing and my friend’s quip, the charm became known as Bulletman.