Childhood Toys And Imagination

Pretend Cowboy

Bicycles and roller skates were pretty much the most desirable toys when I was a kid. I also recall my parents getting us a play kitchen, too. Mind you, that was long before the days of electric kids stoves, and ovens that really baked little cakes with the heat of a lightbulb. 


I don't recall there actually being fad toys like today.  Of course we never even got a television until 1955, so maybe we just weren't aware of those things.  If I saw a toy I liked, my parents might buy it, or might not, depending on whether or not they could afford it, or thought it was a good idea or not.

Children actually used their imagination in those days. For example,  I remember gently swatting flies, just hard enough to kill them, yet leaving them intact, and removing their wings, adding in some grass, and weeds, and pretending I had cooked chicken with veggies. 
When I was six years old, I was very ill, and spent the greater part of a year in bed. My aunt and uncle sent me a really large "Magic Slate," from Ohio, so I would have something to play with in bed.  It was almost as big as I was.  It even had a rolling/scrolling sheet of many pictures for me to draw on the magic slate. Even today, I have never seen another magic slate like that one. 

Books

My first grade teacher was nice enough to stop and visit me, and always brought me a new Golden Book, at every visit, as she knew how much I loved to read. Yes, I could read at age six.  I found it easy to learn, and it opened up a new world of imagination for my mind, stuck in bed, and not expected to live to see age nine. 

Toy Cars and Trucks

I also had lots of those tiny pot metal cars. I pulled moss off of a huge Oak tree in front of a neighbor's house, and use that for grass that was on each side of my pretend roads.  I also planted grass seeds in areas that were bare, and grass actually grew there.  No one had told me about planting grass seeds when I was six, it just sounded reasonable to me, that grass should grow from grass seeds.

When we wanted to play cowboys and indians, we used sticks for horses, and either a toy cap gun, or our hand and fingers as out six-shooter. I always pretended to be Roy Rogers.  I loved playing cowboys, I was always Roy Rogers, and my stick horse was Trigger, of course.

Chasin' Rustlers
Herding Cattle

I also had a doll which had a sun suit, and hat, and could drink from a bottle, and wet her pants, too. Now that doll would be worth quite a bit, as it was a Madam Alexander doll, with movable arms and legs. I kept that doll for many years, until it was finally stolen while we were away from our home for about a month. Someone actually removed all our possessions. 

Paper Doll Fun

It's really too bad that kids today have way too many toys that actually stifle their imaginations.