My Top 5 Childhood Toys
67We all grew up with toys we loved. I was a kid a long time ago, by some standards. Here's my top five most memorable toys:
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Daisy RED RYDER 1938 BB Rifle Shooting Kit - includes BB's plus Targets (Remanufactured)
Price: $39.99
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1. Daisy Rifle BB Gun
My BB gun provided me with hours of entertainment. I would line up Coke cans in front of a tree and plink at them until they were all knocked down. My father and older sister hunted with real guns, and I was anxious to grow up and hunt with them, so the BB gun was my practice for growing up and my fantasy of growing up at the same time.
One time my friend and I went up in the hay loft of his family's barn and played gun fight. Boy, it was a good chance to lose an eye! We each took cover behind a bale of hay, but his gun barrel was sticking out. I won the gun battle by bouncing BB's off his gun barrel!
It's a good thing my dad didn't find out, boy. I probably still wouldn't be able to sit. down to this day.
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Schwinn Prelude Men's Road Bike (700c Wheels)
Price: $219.99
List Price: $299.99 |
2. Schwinn Typhoon Single Speed Bike
That same friend and I rode all over hell on our bikes. I had my big old Schwinn Typhoon and he had his sporty Schwinn Fastback with the banana seat. We would ride ten or twelve miles out on the fire lanes through the deserted woods. Our parents had no idea where we were, and all they ever asked us when we got back is if we had a good time!
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Discraft 175 Gram Ultimate Frisbee Ultra-Star Disc - Orange
Price: $6.85
List Price: $10.00 |
3. Frisbee
My little sister and I would go in the back yard and throw that frisbee until it was too dark to see. Somewhere off in the distance, a lawnmower would drone on. The shadows would get longer and longer as the summer sun went down, and the air would get cool and delicious. Summers seemed to be eons long then, with September and the new school year so far away. As darkness fell, the mosquitoes attacked and we went inside, where the light seemed so yellow in contrast to the long dusk.
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Earthentree Organic Wooden Airplane Toy
Price: $19.99
List Price: $19.99 |
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Aeronca Champion Balsa Model Airplane by Guillows
Price: $1.49
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4. Toy Wooden Airplane
My dad liked to whittle with a pocket knife. He liked to make spinning tops out of empty wooden thread spools. He made a wooden toy airplane for me with a coping saw and whittled the propeller with his pocket knife. That propeller was really a work of art - so symetrical and perfect-looking, carved out of some kind of hardwood. He attached a string to the end of one wing, and as I whirled the plane around my head, the propeller spun and made a growling noise like a real plane engine! Well, at least to my ear it sounded like a real airplane engine.
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BARLOW DOUBLE BLADE FOLDING KNIFE
Price: $3.99
List Price: $12.99 |
5. Pocket Knife
I felt so grown up when my dad bought me a folding pocket knife at the hardware store. He taught me to always face the sharp edge of the blade away from myself and others. I didn't learn so well, though. While I was making a bow (as in bow and arrow) out of a young poplar tree I amost sliced the first finger off my left hand. Then, when I was making another bow the next year, I did it again! I still have the scars to remind me. I may have been a slow learner, but when I finally learned it the lesson stuck. My consciousness of the blade has kept me mostly safe through all my years using hand tools as a locksmith and handyman.
Except for the Frisbee, all my most memorable toys had the potential to kill or maim! What a warped and bizarre childhood! But I liked it. Yes I did.
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Comments
I too had a ten speed, actually a couple of times for Christmas. I don't why my parents always got me the boring bike and got my brother the dirt bike to pop wheelies and do jumps.
Hi Mama - ya my wife tells me her mom and all the other moms used to leave the strollers with the babies in them all in a row outside the supermarket alone while they shopped - in Queens, New York! Times have changed.
Hi Golden - hey, a ten speed is for going places, and it's way faster than a dirt bike on the street! Plus, if you do a jump with it, your REALLY taking your life in your hands!
Ay, the bike and the pocket knife, what memories!! :-) This is a cool hub for a cool request :-)
I had a Daisy too, and just like A Christmas Story I shot myself between the eyes. Ouch! I also recieved a pocket knife and always have had one since I was around five. My older brother also cut himself in the same way you did with his knife. He had to be run to the emergency room for stitches and that was 12 miles to town. He fainted at the sight of his own blood. He is still like that, and he is the same way with needles, so that experience was quite traumatic for him. Ha. My favorite toy was my Lionel, but also my Hop-Along Cassidy shootin' irons. Boy, wish I still had them!
great list. My bike was a big part of my childhood, it gave me a sense of freedom that's never left me.
Hi Elena! Ya the bike must have weighed thirty pounds and I weighed about eighty pounds! Now I ride a 27-speed and carry a multitool when I go camping. That's life.
Hey CC! Those Daisy's were dangerous. That's what was so great about them! I probably should have had stitches, but I don't mind the scars so much. They remind me not to be stupid - sometimes!
Hi London! Me, too. I ride my bike as much as I can.
Yeah loved my first bike, I agree with LondonGirl - it meant freedom. Others that I played with to destruction (of course, I didn't know any better then) were the bow and arrow (the one that has a suction that sticks to glass), an RC, a Voltes V robot and the toy soldiers! Nice hub, brings back good memories :D
Hi Chris! Change enables us to enjoy nostalgia. In these comments I have been reminded of my inherited Lionel train set and green plastic army men. Oh, what wars we fought!
Hey Tom....another excellent hub and thanks for answering my hub request!
Gosh. No cell phone, no iPod, no online games. What a terribly deprived childhood you had! Me, too!
BTW, Whenever I go to the store I ask my Hubby if he wants me to bring him back anything. He routinely asks for "a bag of army men." I was able (finally) to find them at the Dollar Tree store. So he got some in his Christmas stocking!
My sister and I were given a Spectrum 128k + 2 when we were about 8 and 6 - there's technology for you!
Tom, do you recall those little howitzers that fired the missles we had with those little army guys? I had fun with those too. I'd set them up around my train set and have battles with the guys I placed on the various cars. What memories you have brought back. Great indoor fun on rainy days. thanks
My pleasure, KCC!
Your husband must have been so happy, Mighty Mom!
Hi LondonGirl! A friend of mine loved his old Commodore computer, said it was better than Mac or PC!
CC, I was reminded of the little armored vehicles they had - tanks, half tracks, personnel carriers, wow.
This was a fun hub to write and it continues to be fun.
Hi Tom! Finally able to dig in to more of your hubs.. I had a pocket knife at 8 for girl scouts.. it was a "Camp King" and I had it for many years! Frisbees still rock, never went out of style. Our childhood years were so simplistic.. all we needed was our imagination. Large cardboard boxes were made into decorated forts for our "happy hippie club" Hours exploring the woods (until a perv came out and dropped his pants in front of us one evening) then the woods were out of bounds. But it was my bike, the great escape!!
Thanks for bring some of it back!!
Thanks for bringing me back here, Cindy. Those were great days, weren't they?
Tom: CC: I have this wonderful winter village by T. Kincaid and one day I got up to find my (then 11 y/o son) had taken his army men and some large rubber insects and invaded my bucolic village. Cars were upside down on the steps, people under them. A giant spider was on the church steeple. That made me laugh (once I realized nothing was broken). Great imagination!
Ha, ha. A pitched battle with giant insects in mom's village - what could be more fun?
MamaDragonfly2677 says:
11 months ago
Well, I will be the first to comment- Nice job. And I relate to how your parents never knew where you were and only asked if you had fun... It was the same for me. I was the youngest of three kids, and was always stuck home by myself with Mom, while the other two were gone all the time, so I had a pretty good imagination. Our dog, Shep, and I would go across the road, through a cow-pass that went under the road, and follow that down to the brook, and that's where the dog and I played all the time. We even caught red-finned mullets in the shallow part of the brook. (Only in spring, when they were spawning.) Now-a-days, I don't even like to send my kids out in the front yard to play! Things have changed so much, I wonder what it will be like for my kids when they are my age...