What were/are your favorite toys?

[jcsd]

In my neighborhood that would have become a projectile!

I had to share it with my 12 brothers and sisters though

 

[Integral]

I had to share it with my 12 brothers and sisters though

My older brother "shared" many apples and Cherries and other projectiles with me!
He threw, I dodged!

 

[Moonbear]

I have not seen a single kid in this neighborhood attempt to build anything, ever. I rarely even see a kid outside anymore.

We didn't build stuff, but we had great fun using our imaginations. We could play 9 innings of baseball without a bat, ball, or glove. We used trees and shrubs as bases. Ocassionally there was a heated argument about whether a fly ball was a home run or pop fly. But, it was hard to take your ball and go home when there was no ball, so we had to just go on with the game.

I also had a lemonade stand with no stand and no lemonade. My neighbor and I were standing outside yelling, "Lemonade, 10 cents!" when some jogger stopped to buy some. We had to admit we didn't have any, but we did get him a glass of water because we felt bad.

 

[Averagesupernova]

Those were also good places for playing "If I show you mine, you show me yours."

I still try to play that game whenever I get a chance.

Not under some homemade fort in my kitchen though. But, I might mention this thread we have going sometime to a potential 'victim' and see what happens.

 

[tribdog]

We didn't build stuff, but we had great fun using our imaginations. We could play 9 innings of baseball without a bat, ball, or glove.

Now that's just crazy.
I'm always the popular adult in the neighborhood cause I make a lot of stuff. I let the kids have it when I'm done, they don't realize that I'm making stuff for myself. Example: I made an extending boxing glove like you see in cartoons.

 

[Moonbear]

I still try to play that game whenever I get a chance.

Not under some homemade fort in my kitchen though. But, I might mention this thread we have going sometime to a potential 'victim' and see what happens.

Well, if you don't want to make a homemade one, I saw a "Color Your Own Fort" in the store today. It's basically blank cardboard with markers. The sad thing is, parents will be spending the $10 on it when they could get a free refrigerator box from behind the appliance store.

 

[Moonbear]

Now that's just crazy.
I'm always the popular adult in the neighborhood cause I make a lot of stuff. I let the kids have it when I'm done, they don't realize that I'm making stuff for myself. Example: I made an extending boxing glove like you see in cartoons.

Did I ever claim to be sane? Huh, huh, did I? Muwahahahaha!

 

[Les Sleeth]

I also had a lemonade stand with no stand and no lemonade. My neighbor and I were standing outside yelling, "Lemonade, 10 cents!" when some jogger stopped to buy some. We had to admit we didn't have any, but we did get him a glass of water because we felt bad.

Too funny. I was given a woodburning set when I was about 6. Included in it was flat pieces of wood with drawings on them you could follow and burn. Nobody explained woodburning to me, so one day I just took those pieces of wood with drawings on them and went around to the neighbors selling them. They, of course, were nice to a little kid and bought them.

That summer was most eventful, I'll never forget it. My favorite toys were all discovered or homemade. I was born in East St. Louis, and lived there in the early '50s in a very old neighborhood. On the way home from school earlier that year, my sister and I had found an abandoned house which was packed with things. A lot of it was in a huge pile on the living room floor for some weird reason. We'd climb through a back window and spend hours sifting through that pile, and exploring the rest of the house. Great fun.

My parents moved to an apartment above a cafe. My partner in crime (sis) and me discovered it had an attic. In the attic were little wax paper bags, thousands of them. We found we could fill them with water, and bomb kids who walked by our apartment on the way home from school.

Soon after that my dad gave me a bike. He called it a "hotrod" because it didn't have fenders or a chain guard or handlebar grips (good psychology for selling a kid on a used, cheap bike). He showed me how to attach a piece of cardboard with a clothespin to my wheel so the spokes sounded like a motor. Loved it!

Bored one day, a friend and myself went to the middle of an empty lot overgrown with weeds. The weeds were tall with thick stalks and produced milky bulbs, and had gotten so dense you could hide inside all the weeds. We discovered if you pulled them up, a big dirt clump stuck to the roots. We broke off the weed tops, and then used the bottoms like hand grenades, innocently lobbing them at cars driving by as we played "war." That led to my first (and only) childhood ride in a police car.

 

[tribdog]

East St. Louis? Early 50s? Wow, what a coincidence. I almost lived there. We bought a house and were in the process of moving all our stuff, it took two cross country trips. When we brought the second load we discovered that some kids had broken in and ransacked all of our precious belongings. My dad said forget living here we need to find a crime free neighborhood. So we moved to Arizona.

 

[Les Sleeth]

East St. Louis? Early 50s? Wow, what a coincidence. I almost lived there. We bought a house and were in the process of moving all our stuff, it took two cross country trips. When we brought the second load we discovered that some kids had broken in and ransacked all of our precious belongings. My dad said forget living here we need to find a crime free neighborhood. So we moved to Arizona.

LOL! Hey look, my vote for funniest person is between you and Math is Hard, but kissing up won't help your case. If you can tell me five of the 2 cent candies all us kids regularly bought in those days I might believe your pathetic Okie migrant story.

 

[Moonbear]

LOL! Hey look, my vote for funniest person is between you and Math is Hard, but kissing up won't help your case. If you can tell me five of the 2 cent candies all us kids regularly bought in those days I might believe your pathetic Okie migrant story.

Les, don't believe him, he's just trying to fix the election! He wasn't even a twinkle in his parents' eyes yet in the 50s! There are other much more deserving (cough, me)[/size] candidates in the race! (How can you not vote for someone with a smile like that?)

 

[Math Is Hard]

LOL! Hey look, my vote for funniest person is between you and Math is Hard, but kissing up won't help your case. If you can tell me five of the 2 cent candies all us kids regularly bought in those days I might believe your pathetic Okie migrant story.

golly, Les. I'm so honored. I can't believe someone as awesomely brilliant and amazing as you are would consider voting for little ol' me. :shy:

I never bought any 2 cent candies, but I used to buy Cherry Chan and Lemonheads for 10 cents a box. oh, yeah - and atomic fireballs (jawbreaker size) - those were so dang good! I still love 'em. Fire-flavored Jolly Ranchers, too!

 

[tribdog]

LOL! Hey look, my vote for funniest person is between you and Math is Hard, but kissing up won't help your case. If you can tell me five of the 2 cent candies all us kids regularly bought in those days I might believe your pathetic Okie migrant story.

Bazooka (or Double Bubble)
Pixie Stix
jawbreakers
and um
Twizzlers
and um
Sweet Mammoth Jerky?
edit:
oh yeah, you are smart and cute and a truly outstanding physics genius.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Les, don't believe him, he's just trying to fix the election! He wasn't even a twinkle in his parents' eyes yet in the 50s! There are other much more deserving (cough, me)[/size] candidates in the race! (How can you not vote for someone with a smile like that?)

Good points, all. Hey, are you up for math guru? If so, please help me understand why they say there are three kinds of people . . . those who can add, and those who can't.

 

[Moonbear]

Good points, all. Hey, are you up for math guru? If so, please help me understand why they say there are three kinds of people . . . those who can add, and those who can't.

Nope, my hair's too blonde to be nominated as a math guru. What were the choices again? giggle[/size]

 

[Janus]

Tinkertoys! ( I got a new set every christmas)

Chemistry set.

Major Matt Mason (Mattel's first man in space)
Bendable, posable (until the wire inside broke)

Fright factory (Plasti-goop)

Does anyone else remember those plastic toy guns that shot those rubber "bullets" that looked like the eraser off of a pencil? They were spring loaded and you poured the ammo into a chamber. You lost all the "bullets" pretty quickly, but then we discovered that pea seeds were just the right size. Oh the wars we would have in the hay loft!

 

[Les Sleeth]

Bazooka (or Double Bubble)
Pixie Stix
jawbreakers
and um
Twizzlers
and um
Sweet Mammoth Jerky?
edit:
oh yeah, you are smart and cute and a truly outstanding physics genius.

Nice try, but . . . Bazooka isn't bad, and I have to give you jawbreakers even tho that's so generic it ain't falsifiable. However, the rest are bull**** vote-buyin' trash. If you'd said polka-dot candy stuck on paper, or tiny wax syrup-filled soda bottles, corn candy, or even Tootsie Roll Pops when they cost 2 cents, then maybe we'd have a deal. Add to that that you've just gotten me in deep poo-poo by calling me a physics genius and . . . congratulations Math is Hard!

 

[Math Is Hard]

w00t! cool! I voted for you too Les. But, hey - how could I not?

polka-dot candy stuck on paper, or tiny wax syrup-filled soda bottles

can you still even get those anymore? wow! I'll never forget them - we used to get them as prizes at the school carnivals.
That reminds me, I actually found some bubble gum cigars last time I was in Texas. I never thought I would see those again!

 

[Les Sleeth]

Does anyone else remember those plastic toy guns that shot those rubber "bullets" that looked like the eraser off of a pencil?

That almost sounds familiar. I remember something that allowed me to shoot something similar to bullets. I remember spitting on rubber suction-cup darts and shooting them at my dad's forehead, and my faithful BB gun, and the time I found a cattle prod when my great uncle died, and tried it out on my cousin . . .

 

[Moonbear]

w00t! cool! I voted for you too Les. But, hey - how could I not?

can you still even get those anymore? wow! I'll never forget them - we used to get them as prizes at the school carnivals.
That reminds me, I actually found some bubble gum cigars last time I was in Texas. I never thought I would see those again!

We used to have an ice cream shop in my hometown that had a candy shop attached with all those goodies! They closed a long time ago. I have seen the polka dot candy on paper in the grocery stores (it just isn't the same to buy it all wrapped up in sanitary plastic). I haven't seen the plastic soda bottles filled with syrup in ages, so I don't know if they are still made. I sometimes get a craving for those old candies. Yeah, sure, I could just take a spoonful of sugar from the sugar bowl, but it just isn't the same.

 

[Mk]

Kids nowdays have no idea what it means to lose the key to your roller skates.

Huh?

Slingshots were fun.

Who here (as a child) had a

- microscope

-telescope

-invisible man or woman model that they built

Yeah, I had a microscope and a telescope, looked at the moon every few nights.
Wow, those stories Evo told about her imp brother gave me the "Aww, how sad," feeling... though calling it Fang was really funny

 

[BobG]

My favorite toys: shovels, water hoses, dirt, and sand.

Way back at the end of my friend's back yard (it tilted down away from house), where his parents wouldn't notice for awhile, we built an entire battlefield with trenches, bunkers, etc. Lasted until his dad mowed the yard.

Volcanoes in the sand box with a hose and spray nozzle buried under it. Put all the people on the side of the mountain and turn the water on. Eventually the water works it way through the top. Then you can build canals in the sand box along with roads and bridges.

Best was the underground fort in the corn field behind our houses. Someone found a big piece of plywood, so we dug a big hole in the middle of cornfield, threw the plywood over it, cut a trap door in the plywood, and buried the rest of the plywood in dirt. We then cut a maze through the corn field to get to it. Great fun until harvest time. Kids came flying out of there in total terror. The farmer wasn't all that happy about it, but at least it was better than discovering the hole by driving into it.

And dirt clods. Those don't hurt as bad as lumps of coal.

Best indoor toys: Lincoln logs, tinker toys, and erector sets. A super ball at a bowling alley is a pretty fun toy, as well, even if kind of short lived.

 

[Evo]

We used to have an ice cream shop in my hometown that had a candy shop attached with all those goodies! They closed a long time ago. I have seen the polka dot candy on paper in the grocery stores (it just isn't the same to buy it all wrapped up in sanitary plastic). I haven't seen the plastic soda bottles filled with syrup in ages, so I don't know if they are still made. I sometimes get a craving for those old candies. Yeah, sure, I could just take a spoonful of sugar from the sugar bowl, but it just isn't the same.

The Food Channel had featured a store that sells all of the old candy, I can't remember the name, but here's one I found that seems to have all the oldies. http://www.nostalgiccandy.com/store/index.php?action=category&start=0&id=1&subid=

 

[Ba]

I still have a big box of legos. Although most of what we did was make things. In my not so long ago childhood we dug holes in the backyard until we were yelled at (digging a foundation for our house later kind of cured me of that one). We had a shed we turned into a fort no girls alowed. We made swords and staffs out of sticks as well as bow and arrows. These were very soon outlawed and we had to make them in secret (it happened when we accidently shot my sister. The bows actually evolved into something quite good. Microscopes were fun, dissecting bugs. then there were always trees to climb, rocks as well. Hey, I was just playing with a grappling hook and trees over thanksgiving as well as taking down a treehouse I built six years ago. It could still hold my weight but the tree was pulling away

 

[singleton]

Well I think my childhood toys mostly had to do with building things :)

I loved lego, construx and mecano. I'd dig out old train sets of my fathers and set them up while they weren't around :D And I build -tons- of tree forts myself. I'd spend days hacking up very good wood and patchworking together a nail-ridden waiting-for-accident fort about 50 feet up in the trees.

God... looking back it scares me how I could have easily let go/slipped and fallen off from that height

When I was nine I bought my first computer. Yes--I bought it. We grew up poor and I had my first paper route at age six under the supervision of my parents :P (they convinced all customers to pay "office pay" so I wouldn't be troubled with collecting money). I began programming in QBASIC then and haven't stopped programming since

So most of my toys deal with "building" I guess. I'm still a big kid

 

[quantumdude]

Two words: Star Wars (they're not dolls, goddammit, they're action figures!)

I think I was a kid at the absolute perfect time, because those toys were a lot of fun to play with. My brother and I must have made up about a million sequels to the trilogy just in our playroom.

 

[Janus]

While not exactly toys:

The tree-house.( which at various times served as a fort, spaceship,the Bat-cave, etc.)

The raft.

We had a small pond out in our pasture, and one day when I was about 8 or 9 the neighbor kid and I decided to build a raft for floating on it. We had gathered up all the odds and ends of wood we could find and were nailing them together, when my dad walked by. He asked what we were doing and when we told him, He took one look at our handiwork and said "That's no way to build a raft, it will never support your weight."

He then proceded to build us a raft, dragged it to the pond with the tractor and got it into the water for us.

The thing is, my dad was a very busy man, he worked a regular 8 hr a day job and also ran an 80 acre farm with 20 head of cattle. When he stopped to ask us what we were doing, he was on his way to some farm chore or the other, yet he took a big chunk of his day to make us a raft, when he could have just put the kybosh on the whole thing.

We spent many a summer day poling our raft on that pond.

 

[Moonbear]

We had a shed we turned into a fort no girls alowed.

Well, fine, I'll just go play in tribdog's fort; he let's the girls in his fort.

 

[Evo]

Tinkertoys! ( I got a new set every christmas)

Tinker toys! For the life I me I kept drawing a blank on what they were called.

Does anyone else remember those plastic toy guns that shot those rubber "bullets" that looked like the eraser off of a pencil?

Yep, my brother shot me with those too.

 

[abitofnothingleft]

cabbage patch kids dolls