Toys From Our Childhood

[meadowlandsnj]

The thread about Christmas gifts as a child got me thinking of my favorite toys as a child.

Mine were:
Lego blocks
Chemistry set -my sister and I tried to make perfume once and we made a stink bomb instead
Barbie Dolls and Dawn dolls (anyone remember Dawn dolls) One of my friends older brothers used to get all our dolls and put them in different positions with the clothes off.  He also fell out of a tree while peeking in his sisters window. 
A radio.  Any type of radio.  I used to love listenng to the radio.  WABC-AM in NYC played the top 40 hits, I used to put the radio under my pillow at night and listen to it while my sister tried to sleep.  Then my sister told me about FM radio (WNEW-FM) and I started listening to her music (which is now classic rock).  Back then was when radio was good--they played what the DJ felt like hearing, requests, album oriented radio.  Now I don't hardly listen to radio, it's all that Clear Channel drivel and pop/schlock stuff.   
Crayons or markers.
We didn't have a lot of money growing up so we appreciated everything we got.  I see kids today and they're so greedy, don't appreciate anything.  IF we got a pencil we were told to say thank you and be gracious. 

Donna

[kitkatz]

Play dough- I loved to make things with play dough.
My kids loved their legos.  In fact they would play with legos when they were teenagers. Maria would sit in the back room and have conversations and plays essions with the legos for hours.
Slinky!  (Need I say more!)   Usually ended up twisted and broken, but loved it for the time it worked!
My bike.  I named it Mercury and it took me on adventures.
Imagination- my sister and I would play that we had imaginary horses and we rode everywhere on them with our imaginary dogs beside us.  We had huge ranches we owned and huge herds of horses and places to go and roam all in our own imagainations.
Books- I loved to read books.  I would take a book everywhere and read.

[Sluff]

Anything that had wheels. Bicycles, Tonka Trucks, matchbox cars.

[Jill D.]

Barbie dolls and yes, Dawn dolls! I had a really cool Barbie airplane...in fact, it's still at my mom's and all of the grandkids played with it, including my daughter who is now an adult. I had Jane West and Jamie West dolls...does anyone remember those? Their bodies were made of molded plastic, with shirts, jeans, and boots (you couldn't "undress" them). They came with plastic vests, skirts, hats, scarves and camp gear. You could also buy horses with saddles and bridles. My brother had Johnny West and Geronimo. I had an Easy bake oven (cooked with a lightbulb!), jumpropes and Nancy Drew mysteries. I remember one year me and my brothers received radios with cassette players. The cool thing was they had microphones, so we would do "man on the street" interviews and other creative things. I remember recording my mom and grandma talking in the kitchen and getting in trouble because whatever they were talking about was "secret" (probably family gossip!)
Games that we had: Twister, Aggravation, Trouble, Kerplunk, Perfection, Cootie, Monopoly and Life.
We had a lot less "stuff" than kids have these days, but we sure had fun! 

[Sara]

Of course Barbies for me too.  Also My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake. 

[Ohio Buckeye]

I don't remember having many toys.
Had doll and skates and went skating every Sat. with best friend.
Remember using bottle caps on shoes to make them tap dancing shoes,
and dressing up in mom's old clothes and playing house.  haha
life sure was different then.
outhouses, radio, then a small black-white tv, finally indodor plumbing.
I'll never forget freezing cold trips to the outhouse. fell once and cut my leg
and still have the scar from it.  kids have it all now. ac classes, etc. we suffered.

[kitkatz]

I had a pair of skates and hit the back of the house when I closed my eyes coming down the hill behind the house.  Make a pretty good Thwomp sound, too!

[Epoman]

Oh man, I had a GREAT Comic book collection. I had thousands of them and at one point they were worth a nice chunk of change, but then the comic book value market crashed and my collection was now worth 10% of it's previous value. 

I also loved LEGOS, I had a ton of them. Plus I used to love to take things apart and she if I could put it back together again. That really pissed my mom off. 

I was ALWAYS into computers, I used to program my own games in the "BASIC" computer language.

I used to love playing Monopoly and Chess, those were my favorite board games.

- Epoman

[Sluff]

Don't laugh.. a color television.

[Joe Paul]

I had always wanted a go cart while growing up. One time,(1970 or so), I found a riding lawn mower, someone had put it out for the trash. I pushed it home, tore the engine and mowing deck off, and made the frame into a sort of coaster cart and would ride it down the hill, near my house. Used to go pretty fast, fast enough to where my father took it to work, and welded a brake system to the rear. I had lots of fun on that old cart, I wonder what that metal might be today.

[kitkatz]

The Game of Life.  I loved to play that game!

[jedimaster]

My bike....

[Ohio Buckeye]

I did have a lot of books as I belonged to a book of the month club.
Haave thru the yrs. and still have lots of books.
Sorted thru them recently and thinned them out but still have a lot.
Got 2 for Christmas.  Love books.

[kitkatz]

Me too. I love books. Went to Barnes and Noble today and bought books.  Love them books!

[Bette]

I loved clue, holly hobby dolls, Barbie and paper dolls.  Every Christmas my grandmother would make doll cloths and dolls for me.  She didn't have much money but she was so creative.  I loved those dolls the best

[goofynina]

Although i was never able to master the whole thing but i used to love THE RUBIKS CUBE... still dont know how they do it, 

[mallory]

My sister and I loved Barbie dolls.  We used to make clothes for them out of Kleenex tissues, and then we'd make earrings by sticking those straight pins with colored balls on the ends in their heads.  I'll tell you, that was an elegant look!  One year I got a Truly Scrumptious doll for Christmas.  She was just like a Barbie doll, but she was supposed to look like Truly Scrumptious in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (for those of you not familiar with the movie or the doll, she wasn't a stripper and it wasn't a porn movie, in spite of how it sounds!) I thought she was beautiful, she had the nicest dress and a big hat.

My brother had GI Joe and a Major Matt Mason astronaut.  It was cool, it had a little jetpack and you'd fasten a string to something and then he could fly down the string.  My sister and I used to borrow that jetpact and try to use it for our Barbie's.  My brother also loved Tonka trucks and Hot Wheels cars.

Okay, one more; did any of you ever have a Pong game?  It was the first video game.  I still remember how amazed I was that I could turn that little dial and move the paddle on the screen, I thought it was amazing!

[okarol]

I loved my Tiny Tears doll (she cried AND wet too!) I had those stupid skates that had a key, they just about killed me
coming apart when I raced down a hill! I progressed to a skateboard and have the scars to show for that too. Comic books
were handed down to us by a family my mom cleaned house for - they were all boys so we got Superman and Spiderman
and Ritchie Rich - I loved them all. Reading was my escape. I loved to draw and write poems and embroider flowers and
suns on my blue jeans.

[Jill D.]

My sister and I loved Barbie dolls.  We used to make clothes for them out of Kleenex tissues, and then we'd make earrings by sticking those straight pins with colored balls on the ends in their heads. 

I used to do the same thing with the straight pins on my Barbies!  I also would make beds out of kleenex boxes and chairs out of those L'eggs egg-shaped containers that pantyhose came in. My mom used to make all of mine and my sister's clothes, so she would make all kinds of clothes for Barbie (and Ken too!) out of the clothing scraps. She doesn't sew much now, and can't imagine how she had the patience to sew all of those little outfits! 

[Epoman]

Although i was never able to master the whole thing but i used to love THE RUBIKS CUBE... still dont know how they do it, 

I used to take mine apart and put it back together the right way.  It would impress my family. I would go to my room and close the door and take it apart and come out 10 mintues later, having it solved. 

Get to work:

http://www.schubart.net/rc/ 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubik's_Cube

- Epoman

[kitkatz]

My stepson figured out taking off all the stickers and putting them on again was one way to solve Rubik's Cube

[Ohio Buckeye]

My brothers had a Lionel train set and I remember the wooden sleds.
I still have 1 of them.  lost track of the Lionel.

[anja]

Yes, I had a Pong game too.  Also fondly remember my" 'Robert the Robot' the mechanical man, drive me and steer me wherever you can..." Plus another great Christmas gift was a tabletop pinball machine that kept track of the score and had lights that lit up and everything,  my parents stayed up some nights after us kids were in bed playing with it!  ( Wow, the good ole days, we didn't even ask for anything and we always loved what we got, even if it was just necessary clothing for winter...)  Did anyone else get a rub-on paperdoll of Patty Duke?  I thought that magnetizing was magic! 

[Rerun]

We didn't have a big farm and our horses were not registered purebred or anything, but we had horses and I loved mine.  I was 12 and saved up enough money for a Stud fee.  I think it was $75.  My brother had a mare and so we bread her.  On May 17, 1974 McKeya (stud colt) was born.  I would sit out in the barn for hours with him.  BACK ON Topic... I would get lots of stuff for my horse at Christmastime.  Halters, lead ropes, treats.  Horses are expensive and so Mom and Dad killed two birds with one stone and I don't blame them.  I loved all of it.

[nextnoel]

Pick-Up Sticks, and the Old Maid cardgame, and Lincoln Logs (did you know they were invented by the son of Frank Lloyd Wright?), and Tinker Toys, and that peg game, where the holes are in the form of a cross, and you remove the pegs you "jump" and try to end up with just one peg in the center.  And most especially, Chinese Checkers.