toldailytopic: What were your favorite childhood toys and why?

[Four O'Clock]

I'm a 57 yr. old timer so:
Lincoln Logs (no brainer)
Johnny Reb cannon (it fired a 4-5'' hard plastic ball at assailants) We used to play in the hallway upstairs in the dark; boy you could hear that whistling ball o' death approaching. (It was banned shortly thereafter)
Sonic-Boom Bazooka (a loud 'sonic' BOOM emanated when you pulled the trigger) This one was banned too, probably rightfully so...
Yo-yo's (can't think of the company but they had the market on a variety of them)
Super-balls (we thought golf-balls bounced high!?) The first afternoon we lost 3 or 4 after launching them down the street!
(this goes way back) The soldier's set you used to get on the back of comic books (Revolutionary or WW2) for only $1.99!!! Two or three hundred soldiers in different positions...We used to throw a rug and/or a blanket in the air and, however they landed, that was the terrain/battleground. It used to drive my Mom nuts!
Super-soakers! Once the squirt-guns went high-tech it was no holds barred baby!
I've often thought that if everyone was armed with them in the movie "Signs"? Problem solved, aliens toast!
How about board games? Many are great to this day...
Clue? Still a great game with mis-directed strategy. In almost 50 years of playing, its STILL never been done in the lounge so I cross that room off at the beginning of every game...
Risk? Clearly one of the best! As adults, we used to play into the early morning...
Pathfinder? Not the 40's-early 50's version which was good in its own right-I've got a vintage copy of the original from e-bay...
The 70's re-do in which (sort of like battleship only MUCH more challenging) each side constructs a maze with a home base concealed and the opponent tries to find your home base. We still play this one.
The thrill is in constructing a maze so difficult as to give your opponent fits in trying to find your home base...
more later...Great thread

I almost forgot: "Reliveo" or "Slips" depending on your location. You set boundries AND a home base; the back of an abandoned truck or a back porch, etc...
Two teams 4-5-6 per team.
Team one gets 30 seconds to hide and team two pursues them after that. If team two catches a team one member, the have to go to the jail (home base). Team one can 'free' them if they touch them at the home base. If team two catches them all? Game over. If team one remains elusive, they win. I'd forgotten about this one, its one of my major childhood memories...

 

[The Barbarian]

Ah, inner tube guns. Anyone remember them? Take a 3 foot length of board, and put a nail on one end and a spring clothespin on the other.

Then cut out from an old inner tube, rings of rubber. Stretch over the gun and secure with the clothespin. Really stings at close range.

Bicycle inner tubes worked for pistols.

 

[TomO]

Ah, inner tube guns. Anyone remember them? Take a 3 foot length of board, and put a nail on one end and a spring clothespin on the other.

Then cut out from an old inner tube, rings of rubber. Stretch over the gun and secure with the clothespin. Really stings at close range.

Bicycle inner tubes worked for pistols.

We used to make smaller versions with those heavy rubber bands and rulers...the rubber bands could be used to secure the clothespin onto the one end of the ruler. lain:

 

[TomO]

Lawn Darts :banana:

 

[Psalmist]

We didn't have BB guns...My late brother Fred got his left eye put by a BB gun by some neighbor kid, Fred did have a BB gun at the time, so after that neither of us would have one, and that was okay, we really didn't need it.​

:shocked:
Oh man that's horrible! I've never heard a real story of that happening before.

I remember seeing by brother with his bandaged after the eye thing happened. Most of what happened is sketchy, I do remember all the trips to eye doctor. My brother managed well through the years of his blindness.​

 

[The Barbarian]

We used to make smaller versions with those heavy rubber bands and rulers...the rubber bands could be used to secure the clothespin onto the one end of the ruler.

My brother and I once built one out of a 2X4, with the bands knotted to fit that monster. It took two people to use, but in narrow alleys, it was a streetsweeper.

 

[Ps82]

Loved my roller skates. We skated for blocks around our neighborhood.I loved skating fast. I also loved my bicycle. I took me to wherever I wanted to go.
And of course I had a favorite doll. My best friend and I learned how to sew and embroider as we made clothes for our dolls.

Bybee and Psalmist,
We would roller skate a lot also. We could go almost all over town because we had side walks. I liked my bicycle until I got my pony and surrey ... but I had a doll I just loved. In fact I still have her.

Once or twice my third grade teach allowed the girls to bring their dolls to school, and they sat at our desk with us. As I think back ... sadly, I have no idea if every girl had a doll or not. I was just so happy to have Posey next to me that I didn't pay any attention to anyone else. I don't even know what the boys were allowed to bring.

Psalmist, I played cowboy and Indians ... and we even played Roy Rodgers and Dale Evans. I always got to be Dale. Our youngest cousin had a choice between Pat, Bullet, Trigger, or Nellie Bell... if he cried he played Roy occasionally. The bad guys were always pretend bad guys.

 

[Psalmist]

bybee and Ps82...

I wore out two pair of steel wheel sidewalk skates, thanks for reminding me.

As for the cowboys and indians our bad guys were imaginary too.​

 

[One Eyed Jack]

I got hit in the upper cheek with a ricochet once. Broke the skin and left it bleeding. I told my mom I'd gotten poked by a branch.

I got myself in the chin a couple times on the ricochet. Didn't break the skin, though.

I remember being impressed at the time at how quickly it happened. Not like TV where the good guy sees it coming and has time to duck. :think:

This is funny, because I actually did see it arcing right back at me.

 

[Krsto]

Dolls, dolls and more dolls. Do dresses fit im well, of course! There is a big difference between velvet and velveteen, or silk and nylon,,or rayon and cotton. It is matter of texture to the touch, which forms early opinions about what you lie touching your skin.

So that's what's going on in the mind of a girl when playing with her dolls. You people are starting to make more sense now.

 

[Krsto]

My grade school friends and I had great fun with our dads' axes being regular Paul Bunyans out in the school woods building our log cabin until some other kids destroyed it.

 

[Krsto]

Pitching pennies was fun. We would stand about 10 feet from a wall and each toss a penny at the wall. Whoever got his penny closest to the wall won the other's pennies.

Oh and marbles. Never did learn how it was supposed to be played with the circle but we played army with each of us having 6 or so and trying to flick them accross the rug and hit the other guys knocking them out of the game. Last one with marbles left won. We even had a carpet in our 5th grade hallway and played there during lunch.

 

[One Eyed Jack]

Nothing beats Legos. K'nex tried, but didn't come close.

I kinda liked the Tyco super blocks. They were compatible with Legos, but the flat pieces were in halves instead of thirds.

 

[Ps82]

My friends and I built a tree house/platform in a neighbor's tree! Yep, had to take it down too, when the neighbor saw it.

Yet, my favorite of all favorites was any kind of horse toy. Played with my plastic ones for hours and for years.

I have one 12 inch toy horse with saddle accessories and rider, but the plastic accessories seem to be deteriorating. They feel very slimy. It is like they are melting. Anyone with any ideas about what is happening to them and how to retard this process?

 

[The Barbarian]

The most common plastic with this kind of degradation is PVC. It can lose the plasticisizers, resulting in a tacky surface with increasing brittleness.

Cellulose acetate can do this also, but with a vinegar-like smell.

Apparently, there isn't much you can do; if they are kept in the cold and dark, that slows the process, but it's not a very practical solution.

I've noted with some dismay that a similar sort of breakdown happens with the plastic used for K&E slide rule cursor parts. You'd be surprised what a tiny piece of plastic can sell for, on the right website.

 

[Ps82]

That's too bad. The horse and cowboy look so sharp in all their accessories. They are at least 55 years old.

It seems that is was about that age when I began to deteriorate too. I wonder if a dark cool place would help me?

 

[The Barbarian]

The most common plastic with this kind of degradation is PVC. It can lose the plasticisizers, resulting in a tacky surface with increasing brittleness.

I wonder if a dark cool place would help me?

I don't know, but you've got me wondering if Sot is made of PVC, now.

 

[firon]

I remember seeing by brother with his bandaged after the eye thing happened. Most of what happened is sketchy, I do remember all the trips to eye doctor. My brother managed well through the years of his blindness.​

I recently heard of someone killing another child with one shot from a BB gun. It struck the center of his eye and traveled into his brain. Some neighhbors would go at one another with BB guns. They were two rough boys. I would box one of them, but I never go into their BB gun fights. To them it was just good fun.

 

[Rusha]

Loved my roller skates. We skated for blocks around our neighborhood.I loved skating fast.

Yep, same here. My childhood dream was to be the "Next Great Star of Roller Derby" when I grew up.

Other than having the typical barbie dolls as a girl, the only toys I really enjoyed was my tetherball and basketball and hoop.