It's easy to tell when you become an adult. It's when you feel it really is better to give than to receive. Wired has a GeekDad article which lists the 5 best toys of all time. GeekDad must have been a normal child since he gets it right. Actually, I'd be suspicious of anyone who didn't answer the top two toys correctly. Like meeting someone at night in the woods during WWII when you ask them a baseball question (What was Andrew McCutchen's batting average in 2011? Ans: .259), when the world is invaded by shape shifting aliens and you need to tell who is human, just ask them to name their top two childhood toys.
I still constantly find sticks placed in the garage at mom's house which I dare not throw out, and every time I go to Pete and Lisa's house there is a stick made into a bow just waiting to put someone's eye out. Some of my happiest times were spent inside a big box. I might question the entire list of five, however. I would probably put dirt/mud higher on the list, especially if that includes sand, and somehow would fit blocks into the top 5.
Anyway, what is/was your favorite toy? (other than the one's named in the article)
While I'm tempted, as others must also be, to name a toy I dreamt about but never received, like the Red Ryder BB Gun, that is against the rules since an actual toy often is nothing like the one you dreamt it was. (For example, any toy you received from sending in box tops—oh, except the baking soda submarine. That was awesome!)
My favorite would probably be water, in the bath tub, down the basement, out in the back, and in the ocean. A less generic toy would be Miss Hetherington's blocks. They did have a sort of dream quality about them since I only played with them once or twice. They were stone blocks of many various shapes, ideal for constructing fantastic castles.
Also in my top five would be a Hopalong Casidy 2 gun & holster set because I got to show them off at school and the Sittman's walk-on-water shoes for riding in waves at the beach.
What toy(s) do you feel gave you the most fun?
2 comments:
Without a doubt, the very best lesson plan I ever put together back in the day when Sue and I taught Sunday School for pre-schoolers was the time when our lesson was the parable of the good Samaritan. We had the kids role play the entire parable. One kid was the priest, one was the Levite (we called him a deacon), one was the man who had fallen among thieves, one was the Samaritan and one was the innkeeper. All the rest of the kids in the class -- kind of like being in the chorus -- were the thieves. And we armed the thieves with -- guess what? -- cardboard tubes. They had the greatest time in the world whacking the poor man until their tubes were reduced to shreds. Of course, no harm was actually done, and the guy playing the man deserved an Oscar for how he crumbled under the agony of the blows.
You just can't go wrong with cardboard tubes.
Army men and blocks ... and guns. Of course, when no guns were available, a stick worked just as well.
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