Childhood Toys, the Stuffed Animals, the Sets and the Kits

I’ll try not to make this just a list.  I remember having a lot of toys, mostly plastic and metal guns, some stuffed animals, building and science kits, and of course, the usual sports equipment and bikes.  And we didn’t always get them only for Christmas, though that is where we usually got our big toys.

          The earliest toys I remember were stuffed animals.  I remember I had a lamb, an elephant, and a teddy bear.  The lamb was creatively called Lambie Boy.  The bear was Chico.  I don’t remember if the elephant had a name, but suspect it did; probably Dumbo.  Chico was my favorite.  I think he finally died when his neck got so loose one day his head finally fell off.  His name probably came from one of the favorite TV programs of the day, The Cisco Kid.  Maybe I couldn’t say “Cisco” correctly.  I’ll have to ask my brother.

          A real favorite group of toys was the kits.  The earliest were Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs.  The logs are still around today, but not sure of the Tinker kits.  I remember building cars, house frames, and even dinosaurs from the sticks and round connectors.  There were no motors that I remember of with the Tinker Toys.  That came with the Erector sets.  Oh, these were great!  Small nuts, bolts, metal girders, washers were common in all kits, but of course, motors in the bigger kits.  The kits came with small wrenches to tighten the nuts.  We made mostly buildings and things that had motors, but to tell you the truth I don’t remember having motors until we got older.  Most of our Erector sets came without motors.  It was less expensive.

          But my favorite kits were the chemistry set and the microscope kit.  We could mix all kinds of chemicals and do tests and watch the reactions when we put the stuff together.  As we got older we could use household items like sugar, match heads, vinegar, bleach, etc.  Always being safe of course!!  I shudder when I think of those experiments we did in the garage next to the car with a full gas tank, all under our home. 

The microscope kit was safer but in its own way just as much fun.  We got to see the world that was too small to see normally.  Just looking at leaves or dead flies opened up windows of imagination that we never thought about before.  We looked at grains of sand, blood and water drops, and other insects, or at least parts of their bodies.  I couldn’t wait until high school when I could use more powerful scopes.  But when I got into high school I didn’t like either chemistry or biology.  I had discovered mathematics.  But back then, there were no toys for math except for the slide rule.  No one had yet invented pocket or personal calculators.

(Georgia 11 font)