Today a friend related a story about an elderly woman who gave her children their teddy bears - which she had saved from their childhood - as Christmas presents. Just last week my mother showed me the three sets of "booties" that my brother, sister, and I had worn. She was thinking about giving them as gifts.
It got me to thinking about my favorite childhood toys...
1. My Dopey Doll. Six inches tall, looked just like the Snow White character, had a soft body, and a painted rubber head.
2. My Tonka Trucks. These trucks were made of steel and even a little boy couldn't destroy them.
3. My guns. I had a civil war musket, pirate pistol, snub-nose 38 with shoulder holster, M16, monkey-gun, hand-held machine gun, a gun that shot rubber bands, and various cowboy six-shooters with holsters... And I didn't end up on a roof somewhere picking off pedestrians.
4. My outfits. My grandmother was a seamstress and I had outfits that made me... Prince Phillip, a pirate, Zorro, Roy Rogers, a doctor, a big game hunter, Broderick Crawford from Highway Patrol, Sgt Saunders from Combat, both a union and rebel soldier, [I'm not kidding] Lloyd Bridges from Seahunt, a football player, and I'm sure I'm forgetting others. Luckily, I didn't have a schizophrenic personality for each outfit. Yes you did! No I didn't!
5. My first bike. It was my older brother's hand-me-down 24 inch bike... Spruced up with a banana seat and ape-hangers. I loved it... And I was cool.
5 comments:
I had a stuffed Toucan Sam, ordered from the back of the Froot Loops box. I wore him out, my mom ordered another, but when I wore that one out, the offer was over and I cried for the loss of my Toucan Sam.
BTW, boys got all the cool toys. Was I jealous of my brother's toys? Yes.
Yes, they do get all the cool toys. Methinks that could be why I was a "Tomboy."
In the 70's "Happy" (my brother Steve) had Evil Knievel everything, even the bike. It was a 24 inch early edition of the BMX bikes of today. It had a gas tank, hand grips that when pulled back made a motorcycle sound and Evil Knievel "red, white and blue" flames. Very cool. His B-day is in July, needless to say when the present was opened (my dad opened the garage door) I was soooo jealous. I got a (regular old blue and white w/ banana seat) bike too, (a birthday 2 weeks after Christmas won't garner any gifts) so I got a gift in July as well.
He also had the Evil Knievel hand-crank motorcycle w/ action figure, (along w/ the camper, jet car, and semi hauler) that when cranked long enough would zoom across the floor. I had the "girls" version called "Darie Daring" and she was in a pink fire suit but I had to share the other Knievel accessories with Evil, I only had the motorcycle w/ handcrank. That's where LEGOS came in handy. I made a house with a garage for Darie and her bike!
Last year for Christmas I found the Evil Knievel motorcycle hand-crank toy from an on-line old time toy store (Betty's Attic dot com) and I bought it for him. He (Nick, Christopher, "D" and my neice) was like that 8 year old kid again and since his name was drawn first he had to wait for everyone else before he could take it out and play. he said it was the BEST gift he'd gotten in years.
We had much fun with those toys.
Sorry for going on and on....
Hey, Malott? I got news for you - you ARE cool! :-)
I had some pretty neat dolls, including "Hi Heidi" and "Chatty Cathy" (one of the first talking dolls that you pulled the string to make the doll talk). But, my most favorite was a simple, rubber/plastic doll that is the size of a baby. It's eyes open and close. I don't know what happened to the others, but I STILL have "Baby". And my mother in law things THAT's cool. (YAY!)
I had a treehouse and a Nintendo. I ruled.
Electric train and race car sets.
G.I. Joe, complete with a jeep that pulled a big wagon which hauled a search light that really worked.
Lincoln Logs
Model ships that I glued together then "sailed"
across the ocean (the blue carpet in our living room).
Plastic machine guns that made noise when you pulled the trigger and army back packs so we could crawl through the jungle (our lawn) and play army.
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