Through the dim memories of a South Bronx childhood — as blurry as the steamed-up living room windows protected by chicken wire from the local knuckleheads and their barrage of rocks — thoughts of Christmastime in 1963 come slowly into focus. The smell of roast pork, the hard-as-nails spiced red and green candies, and the Christmas tree topped by an angel whose very presence spooked me — all of these seasonal recollections fade before one that to this day makes my heart race.

Visiting the Fedco supermarket at Intervale and Fox.

There, above the meat case crammed with pork chops, steaks and chicken, were toys arrayed on shelves tantalizingly close to our small outstretched arms. Big toys. The kind that made a 6-year-old lose himself with desire.

There was the olive green tank that fired tan plastic shells with a whiff of talcum-powder smoke. The fire engine set with what seemed like a million pieces — most of which were lost within days. A secret agent kit, complete with a thin plastic trench coat that offered zero protection from the winter snow when I tried wearing it outside. These were real toys, not the flimsy cars and guns made in Japan from stamped tin cans that still had Japanese lettering on the inside.

And to my mind, none of this could compete with Fort Apache, which was my biggest Christmas wish in 1963. Inside a box whose illustration never matched the makeshift mess I would set up were the parts of a brown plastic fort to be peopled by soldiers on the inside and Apaches on the outside. Maybe it was an omen, since that very neighborhood a few years later would become known as Fort Apache thanks to the overworked and under siege 41st Precinct station house on Simpson Street.