Toys From Our Childhood

We had some of the best toys. Everything from the mundane and kind of silly like paper football, when was the last time you have seen one of those? All the way up to the things that could actually kill you. Now who actually invented lawn darts and said hey let's market these to children that would be a good ideal. Actually that was a pretty fun game that we played on many trips to the park and family reunions until I'm sure someone kid put an eye out and the company was sued into oblivion. What were some of the other toys we played with as children that ours don't appreciate now? How about a simple Slinky, It's just a spring but man it could keep me and my friends entertained for hours on end not counting untangling time which was part of playing with a slinky and let's face it the plastic Slinky's they have now come untangled a lot easier but don't do the whole bouncing down the stairs thing nearly as well as the old fashioned metal ones used to. What about the Rubik's cube, man I remember getting that thing and how I was going to solve it and then realizing the only way I was going to solve it was by taking It apart and putting it back together. But there was that one kid in the neighborhood, I'm sure every neighborhood in America probably, who could actually solve the Rubik's Cube. Lately i've been seeing the Rubik's Cube come back like many things of the past but hey I don't think we will be seeing lawn darts anytime soon. Another thing all the boys had anyway was BB guns it was as sure as a girl having a Barbie doll and we shot everything. Cans, Bottles, Boards, and yes each other. Fortunately none of us were actually hurt by any of this but I don't see that many kids with BB guns these days. When I was really young a had Lincoln Logs and later an Erector Set. With these two things you could build anything steel or wood take your pick if you could only get enough sets. But back then they never came in the five hundred piece set like they do now. It seems that now even all the toys are super sized. I guess they didn't ask any parents who are the ones who ultimately have to pick all these toys up at least when the kids are small. Back to the Barbies I can remember all of the girls having a real wooden doll house usually built by hand by a dad or grandfather and there was always the one girl in the neighborhood who actually had one with working lights and things like that, oh the jealousy.

     So all of these simple toys we all played with and that didn't even include all the games we all played outside all of the time. It seems to me we were always outside compared to kids today. I think that is for many reasons. Everything from people are just so busy to the fact that we are afraid to just let our kids go play in the front yard or down the street by themselves without some kind of adult supervision of some sort now. So where we would just go play in the woods or at the school or go ride our bikes, just be home by dinner that has all been replaced by structured activities from baseball, dance, tennis, and everything else under the sun. So long as there is a coach or an adult to be responsible and supervising the activity. That allows parents to let their kids do these activities but I think something is lost in the fact that the kids today don't just get to play as we did or go and be home by dinner and what have you. However I realize that it is a different world out there now but I do miss those times sometimes. 

     I've been talking about some of the things that I think that I loved as a child that maybe our children our missing, there are definitely some toys our kids have that I would have loved to have had. Let's see, Super Soaker. That is a definite can you imagine bringing a super soaker to a water gun fight back in the day when all of your friends only had dollar store water guns you would definitely win every battle of summer and isn't that what summer is about water gun fights. How about Paintball guns, sure they were around back in the day but the cost was so huge that no one could actually afford them to shoot very often like you can now. How about Things like the PlayStation Three compared to the Atari 2600 of our day the PS3 can run circles around it and you can play virtually anyone in the world on it over that Internet thing that hadn't been invented by Al Gore yet. The Internet well let's just say that my sixth grade paper and well most of the ones after that would have been a lot easier the research anyway.

     So let me ask you when you think back to your past what are some of the toys that were your favorites then that aren't around now or are just coming back now? Also, what toys do kids have today that you wish you had when you were a kid?