As the economy does its roller coaster ride, I hear a lof of folks talking about getting back to basics. Well, I think the basics are good.
What simple toy occupied hours of your time?
I remember taking my allowance to Wash’s Country Story. I would buy two balsa wood gliders for 99 cents. One may even have had a rubber band-driven propellor.
We would throw those thinds for hours. The first part to break was always the tear drop shaped piece that had the pilot printed on it. it never really fit very well into that groove anyway.
On a day with a light breeze we would become aeronautical engineers. We would bend the wings, fold up flaps, adjust the rudder. And once in a while all of the stars lined up together and you acheived the perfect flight. The Wright Brothers could not have been more thrilled. Your plane would swoop and dive, then when the flight seemed to be coming to an end, you would get a kind gust of gentle wind that would lift your plane to new heights.
You could imagine the pilot pushing the throttles forward as the engines roared. Scenes from WW2 movies played out in your head as you chased that little plane, eyes towards the sky, across the yard.
Eventually you would get a wing that cracked edgewise. You knew then your time was limited. The old bird’s days were numbered. That crack folded enough times until a piece would fall out.
If it were a particularly good day for flying, you may fetch the scotch tape. This could extend the life of your place significantly.
But eventually you would drift on to something new.
We played outside a lot: we had jump ropes and balls and we played hopscotch and hide-and-seek.
My 2.5 year old son can play with bubbles for an hour. Same with either blocks or crayons. The other day I gave him a plastic pitcher, a tall plastic cup and some clothespins. That kept him busy for about 45 minutes.
Parachute army men. We would buy as many as we could when we were kids and throw them up in the air all day long. No matter howmany we bought though, by the end of the day they would all be lost, destroyed, or casualties of dog.
I’ve been a horse nut as long as I can remember. When I was small I had little model horses to play with. I’m calling this a simple toy because the only thing purchased was little plastic horses.
I would make barns and jumps and equipment for them with cardboard boxes and old t shirts. I played for hours and hours and hours, building things and making little worlds with my toy horses. I remember those times fondly.
I remember my favorite toys being the ones that you could build things with and change, legos, constructs, lincoln logs. I never liked the kind that had a limited use. I have 2 brothers, we mixed our lego sets together and built all kinds of stuff.
That, and scrap wood, hammer and nails and outdoors. I guess I always liked making stuff.
I had a collection of plastic horses too. I used to painstakingly make tack for them…saddles, bridles, and halters. I took brown paper bags and folded and creased them repeated, until the paper was very soft and pliant. I’d cut it, glue it, and assembled it. I made the buckles and rings from copper wiring, and the buckles worked.
My father worked in a box factory, and would occasionally bring home boxes of all sorts. We had box fortresses, and box houses, and box sleds. The boxes for sleds had some sort of slick finish, I’m tempted to say wax, but I don’t know for sure. Since this was in Texas, we never had enough snow to go snow sledding, so instead we’d open up these boxes and use them on a steep hill.
Heh. I have a coloring book of butterflies, and some colored pencils. My husband expressed some envy, so I got HIM a set of pencils and a cars activity book. I also got him some paint by number sets. He loves this.
Ahh, a kindred spirit! I’m impressed your buckles worked! Eventually, my mother would get me bags of scrap leather, and I would use it to make tiny little saddles and other tack.
Now I have real horses to play with. Wish I could still make my own tack…
Me too, for the horses! I had what seemed like dozens of models including one with a real mane and tail, plus saddle and everything - a couple of the much-prized Breyers models (to die for!)- plus statues and figurines and books …wonder whatever happened to them? My mother probably threw them out when she threw out my comic book collection, ha! (yes, I had stacks and stacks of Marvel comics from the 60’s - 70’s)
We got a lot of mileage out of Tinker Toys. And I loved paper dolls, and sometimes drew my own dresses to put on them. Oh, and modelling clay. And there was a brief fad of soap carving - elephants and rabbits were my specialty. And…my daughter and I made a dollhouse, complete with cardboard stairs, curtains, rugs, decorated inside and out, from a big heavy cardboard box. It took weeks, and we never had so much fun!
I’m surprised that you could make teeny tiny tack from leather. I would have thought it was too thick. I remember gluing a couple of pieces of the brown paper together, to give it a bit more strength, and it was almost too thick for the bridles. I also remember padding the saddles with cotton balls, unrolled and spread out.
The “teeny tiny tack” thing cracks me up! My next-older sister was horse-crazy, but I don’t think she ever did this with her Breyers. I was totally into making clothes for my trolls, though.
I spent hours playing solitaire when I was 9 or 10 and my next-older sister was getting too old for horses and trolls. We had a wooden labyrinth, and I spent hours with that, too.
When we were much younger, we did this: We drew a line down the middle of our chalkboard. We’d take turns drawing a random squiggle which the other had to reproduce on her side. Then we each had to draw something that incorporated the squiggle.
My mom would buy me a 500 pack of filler paper, and that would keep me occupied for a whole summer. You could draw on them, make paper dolls, make lots of paper airplanes, make little chutes to put a marble in that never ever worked, anything! Man, I want a pack of paper right now.
My brother and I played with wooden blocks for hours and hours. We had 1 or 2 milk crates full. Mom kept them and is very excited now that her upcoming grandbaby will get to play with them.
We also had a lot of Legos. I think we maybe got 2 actual sets between us, but had a ton of random pieces to play with.
When I got a little older, probably a pre-teen, my dad bought me a nice wooden dollhouse. I didn’t get any furniture for the dollhouse, or people to live in it. I used all my existing figurines (including a lot of figures from Happy Meals) and made a LOT of furniture out of cardboard and scraps of fabric. Every so often they’d take me to the dollhouse hobby shop and I’d buy some nice little piece like a pot or a newspaper. Other times I would buy plastic furniture sets from KMart for a coupla bucks.
Come to think of it, that house was furnished much like my real house is now
Anyway, I probably spent 4-6 hours a day playing with my dollhouse from the age of 9 to 13. It was the best.
Wooden blocks - my dad made these and still does
Wood scraps, a hammer and nails - occupies hours of time
Fabric scraps, embroidery floss and a needle - make your own doll clothes
Scrap paper, crayons, glue, glitter, etc - Dad used to bring home rolls of used graph paper from work
Legos - you can make anything with these
Rag dolls - we spent a lot of time playing house with these
Play house - My dad and grandfather built this when we moved to the house where I grew up. An old school bus seat served as the sofa and our play kitchen was there with the dishes. Summer days, half the neighborhood kids were too.
Garden seeds - not necessarily a toy, but it was fun to watch your flowers and veggies grow
Yo-yo - what a way to wile away the day…portable, too!
Paper dolls - simpler than the fashion dolls and a whole lot less expensive
Library books - a lot of hours of entertainment
Flour, sugar, etc and a cookie recipe - one of our favorite indoor activities…and you get to eat the results!
Oranges and apples - see who can get the longest unbroken peel…see above for use of the results
Sled - this only works if you live where there is snow
Bicycle - depending on the neighborhood and traffic situation, good excercise and a lot of fun
No, I didn’t grow up one of the Waltons, but in a small town in the sixties and seventies…there were a lot of kids in my family and one blue collar income, so a lot of our fun was homemade.
Sometimes if I need to defrazzle my mind at work I just open up Paint on my computer and scribble for a while. No particular picture or anything, just go at it with the Spray Paint tool or whaever.
