The Toy Story

September 3 - What toys do you remember playing with as a child.

Being an only child in a poor household meant there were not a lot of toys for me to play with. Let's face it, in the 50s, toys weren't as plentiful as they are now. My favorite must have been my bicycle, because I remember riding it a lot. I also climbed the big tree in my grandmother's front yard a lot, but I don't think that counts as a toy.

Now, my cousins had some toys, and I loved getting to visit them and play with Tinkertoy, Lincoln Logs, Playdough, and Monopoly. They also had cereal with treats in them. It was heaven when I got to spend the night at their house. They had a swingset in the back yard that we tipped over more than once.

This could very easily have been a picture of my two cousins

My dad's mother did buy me a Barbie which I got to play with when I visited her. She would knit and sew clothes for the doll, and I think she had more fun with that than I had with the doll. I wasn't a doll person. One year, I got a chemistry set for my birthday, and I would spend a lot of time with that. I thought I was really making things, and I learned words like phenolphthalein. When I was 11, my grandparents also got me a .22 rifle. I was so excited when I got to get it fitted for a scope.

I seem to recall having a case like this one.

 However, there is one special toy that my mother saved for me. It is a large, stuffed brown bear, called "Brownie" no less, that I got as a gift one Christmas. I think I was 7 or 8 years old. I lugged that bear around as we moved from place to place, up until my teens. I must have lost interest in it, and unbeknownst to me, my mother saved it. She returned it to me when I got married. It is a sorry looking creature, but I thought maybe my daughter would want it. She didn't, but it sits up in my closet anyway. I just can't stand to throw it away.