# Favorite childhood toy.



## Chief Longwind Of The North (May 30, 2008)

What was yours?  
Number 1, period! - bicycle
Number 2, bow with arrows
Number 3, slot car track

Best natural rescource, - river tha ran in front of our front yard that seperated Michigan from Ontario.  Depth - 35'feet.  Width - 3/4 to 1 mile.  Great fishing and swimming opportunities.

2nd best natural resource, lots of Upper Peninsual Forest.

Most important assets, freinds and family.

Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North


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## LadyCook61 (May 30, 2008)

I would say Bicycle , and roller skates.


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## Saphellae (May 30, 2008)

In chronological order from when I remember lol...

Can you tell I changed it alot?  The numbers don't add up. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!

1. Teenage mutant ninja turtle figurines.. I even had the life sized wall stickers in my bedroom.
3. Popples
4. A doll that did somersaults because her head was really heavy lol
5. Peeing dolls 
2.  Barbiessssssss!!! 
3.  Barbie corvette!  (I saw an ad on the internet somewhere that was selling a barbie corvette, and it said "Barbie mechanic approved". Cute! lol  .. Barbie and Ken would put all their 10 babies in the back of the corvette trunk and ride to the beach (the spare bedroom) LOL
4.  Roller skakes.. then roller blades
5. My bike!
6. Playmobile
7. My best friend and I had two eagles.. one was named Josh and I can't remember what mine was called, but we used to role play with them. I was the girl and my friend was the boy lol
9. Pogs
8. what was that thing called.. Step a skip? It went around your ankle and you twirled it around and jumped on it.. No, SKIP IT!!!!!




.... darn right I was an only child! LOL! Spoiled brat.


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## sattie (May 30, 2008)

Lincoln Logs
Hot Wheels/Match Box cars
Big Wheel 360
Trampoline


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## redkitty (May 30, 2008)

Bicycle
Hot wheels & miles of tracks
Legos
Tonka Dump Truck
Big Wheel


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## Barb L. (May 30, 2008)

Wow you are pushing my brain - great question !  I was a tomboy - baseball and mitt- ( playing catch with my Dad), marbles - when I played with my brother(10yrs. older), jump rope, jacks, walking doll, oh- my gun and holster (many westerns on then)  !


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## Saphellae (May 30, 2008)

Ooh I had a mitt and baseball too, I also had marbles!!!


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## sparrowgrass (May 30, 2008)

I had a gun, too, and hated dolls.  I think I was the despair of my mother.

Loved my bike, and the vinyl swimming pool in the back yard.


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## LadyCook61 (May 30, 2008)

sparrowgrass said:


> I had a gun, too, and hated dolls. I think I was the despair of my mother.
> 
> Loved my bike, and the vinyl swimming pool in the back yard.


 oh good , another one who hated dolls  I hated them too. I was a tomboy, climbed trees , like cowboy things not cowgirl things.


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## GB (May 30, 2008)

I had a big toy truck I loved. My daughter now plays with it. I also had a fire truck and when you opened the doors there was a CB radio inside that actually worked. I had many hours of fun with that.


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## redkitty (May 30, 2008)

I used to bury my barbie dolls in the dirt in our back yard, with their feet sticking out and their little plastic shoes on!  Then I would dig them up and drag them around the yard in the back of my Tonka dump truck!

My mother was convinced I was a boy in a girls body!!!


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## Fisher's Mom (May 30, 2008)

I loved playing with little trucks and cars in the dirt. I was pretty young then. I also loved my Barbie when I was about 9. But the thing I loved most was my transistor radio, which I secretly put under my pillow so I could keep listening all night. I think I got it when I was 8 or 9.


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## pdswife (May 30, 2008)

Barbie and Ken dolls!  All the Ken's were renamed David.  Until I met Paul all the guys I dated were named David or they were Virgos ( one was both).  Paul's a Virgo but not a David.  lol... don't pay attention to me. I'm going crazy.


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## jeninga75 (May 30, 2008)

My Commodore 64 lol!  I was a video game junky from the beginning.  Still play avidly.  I'm one of those adult nerds that still play video games.


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## Katie H (May 30, 2008)

My immediate response was my teddy bear.  His name was Old Ted and he and I were inseparable.  When I slept with him, I used his face as my pillow and, as a result, his nose became flat.  When that  happened, my daddy would clip the stitches on the center seam, put in more stuffing and sew it back up.

Had Old Ted for many years, when he was replaced with a newer teddy bear that looked almost like him.  The new bear's name was New Ted.  I have warm, happy feelings when I think of my dear little bears.  They were fuzzy beige and rust-colored teddy bears with nice big "googly" eyes.  I miss my bears.


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## middie (May 30, 2008)

My bike
My barbies
Crayons
Lite Brite
Hula Hoop


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## kitchenelf (May 30, 2008)

Thumbelina - I "lost" her on a vacation and was inconsolable for days!


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## middie (May 30, 2008)

Whoops... I forgot about Spirograph and my animals !!!!!!!


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## MexicoKaren (May 31, 2008)

Redkitty, I love the image you created of the Barbie dolls with their feet sticking out of the ground! I was a tomboy, too. Climbed trees, played marbles. My dad played catch with me, bought me a great bat and mitt. My parents gave me a Tiny Tears doll one year for Christmas and I traded her to my neighbor girl for a head of cabbage (they made me return the cabbage and retrieve the doll). Then they gave me a Little Lulu doll and I cut her hair off because I thought it would come back thicker and more curly (I think my sister sold me that one!) Dolls were just not a good investment for me....oh, and I loved Tinker Toys.


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## SierraCook (May 31, 2008)

My brother's Hot Wheels Cars - we would spend hours playing with them in the dirt and on this tracks.
Legos - mostly built garages for the cars
The trees in our backyard - made great pirate ship masts, forts, etc.
The playhouse that my uncle and dad built my brother and I.
2 pairs of firemen's structure boots and 2 adult raincoats - many a rainy day was spent playing in the rain.  Mostly floating sticks and toys in the stream that ran through our 10 acres.
Our 3 dogs - they went everywhere my brother and I went.
A bag of old clothes that my mom got from a thrift store.  It was great fun to dress up us and the dogs
The Little House on the Praire series of books - I have read them many times over and I still have them even if they are worn out and raggedy.
All the stuffed animals that my grandma made for me.  
The pillow that Grandma made me one year for Easter. (I still have it)

I have to stop now because thinking about my grandma is making me sad.


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## Uncle Bob (May 31, 2008)

My BB Gun maybe..........


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## redkitty (May 31, 2008)

Oh I forgot about my hula hoop!


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## buckytom (May 31, 2008)

SierraCook said:


> Our 3 dogs - they went everywhere my brother and I went.


this doesn't sound right. lol

yes, i'm childish...


i loved my g.i. joe's. especially when they came out with life-like hair and beard. i had the best joe around because of an accident. i managed to scrape off some of his beard one day playing too rough, so i found one of my dad's safety razors and finished the job, leaving my g.i. joe with a funky fu-manchu moustache. this was around 1972, so weird facial hair meant that you were anti-establishment, and therefore cool. all of my friends wanted to know where i got the "special edition" joe. 

i even taught myself to sew (really just cave-man stitching) with my g.i. joe.
i remember liking all of the neat uniforms and gear that was available for them, but i couldn't afford it. also, i was into spiderman. so i took some red and blue felt, and raided my mom's sewing box and found a permanent marker and got to work.
i then had the only g.i. joe with a (trademark infringement ) spiderman costume, complete with mask.

those were good days.

then i got a little older, and my friends and cousins and i built vietnamese looking villiages in the woods across the street from my house, put our g.i. joe's in their jeeps and helicopters and blew everything up or set it on fire.

it was our apocalypse now.


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## Chief Longwind Of The North (May 31, 2008)

buckytom said:


> then i got a little older, and my friends and cousins and i built vietnamese looking villiages in the woods across the street from my house, put our g.i. joe's in their jeeps and helicopters and blew everything up or set it on fire.
> 
> it was our apocalypse now.


 
A pond came into being with every springtime snow melt near the top of one the gravel pits (the one with the cliff that I used to jump off of).  We'd dig a small trench from the pone to the cliff edge and create a waterfall.  Then we'd dam it up and build a village down in the pit, about twenty feet from the waterfall.  We'd then build a humongous (at least for an eleven year old boy) dam that would catch the water and hold it from spreading, creating a four foot deep by seven foot diameter pool.  We then broke the dam at the top and let the pool fill until it eventually overflowed and collapsed, destroying the village.  Then we'd start over.  We'd come home so wet and coverd in sand that we'd have to change out in the cold garage before we were allowed in the house to clean up the rest of the way.  And we did this in 35 to 45 degree weather, oblivious to the cold all day.

Now you know why I'm Goodweed of the _*North,*_ and why I overheat in anything above 82 or so degrees.

Seeeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North


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## luvs (May 31, 2008)

sit-&-spin was awesome! so were kiddo strollers & playpens & stuff for my dolls. & pong!
sheesh, we'd be fine if it was okay to play with toys as adults! can't wait till i'm a Mom!


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## texasgirl (Jun 1, 2008)

My stuffed animals!! All of them! I would take turns every night on which ones slept with me in the bed, lol.


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## expatgirl (Jun 1, 2008)

favorite childhood toy.......if you consider books a distraction then that would be it......took me away from all the turmoil going on in my life....visited many lands and lived many cultures in my books.....please give your children lots of books......


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## expatgirl (Jun 1, 2008)

my daughter read just nearly every book on our shelves........I had everything from junk to classics.......kids will read.......


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## luvs (Jun 1, 2008)

i read myself into "smart" classes at school.


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## expatgirl (Jun 1, 2008)

what were those in your days, luvs??? We only had advanced clases in English and math........kids learned fast that it just meant more homework......nothing advanced at all........no killing each other to get into colleges......course it was easier to get into colleges then, too.......


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## expatgirl (Jun 1, 2008)

classes........


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## MexicoKaren (Jun 1, 2008)

Expat girl, I can certainly identify with what you have said about books. They were my friends. I can remember standing in front of a shelf of library books when I was about 9 and thinking,"Someone wrote each one of these books just for me to read. I should read them all." And I tried. I was a solitary child and I travelled in many worlds, like you.


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## BajaGringo (Jun 1, 2008)

I know you are going to laugh at this but go ahead, I am used to it. I remember when I was a kid my dad would bring home these HUGE boxes used to cover refrigerators. They were heavy, thick and much stronger than the boxes typically used today. I would spend hours creating a fort, space ship or just a private hideaway, cutting holes for windows and making a doorway in. Using magic markers I would make the inside anything I wanted and it was more fun than any toy they could have bought. I saw a photo the other day my mom took back in the early 60's of one of my "Space Ships". It was quite an invention and I remember friends begging for me to "let them in". 

Creativity in that regards is lost with a lot of kids today. They just turn on the video game...


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## expatgirl (Jun 1, 2008)

one of my fondest memories of my Dad was him taking several large boxes. taping them together and making us a fort.........he had so little time for us being in the Army so it was memorable..........we were the stars of the neighborhood that week........


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## expatgirl (Jun 1, 2008)

MexicoKaren said:


> Expat girl, I can certainly identify with what you have said about books. They were my friends. I can remember standing in front of a shelf of library books when I was about 9 and thinking,"Someone wrote each one of these books just for me to read. I should read them all." And I tried. I was a solitary child and I travelled in many worlds, like you.



books are one thing that I go nuts over.....and spend the most $$$ on.....my DH and I spend a fortune on books and  everyday cost of living expenses......neither of us are into designer clothes, high end personal maitenance, jewelry, etc., etc, so books are where the $$$ goes.....I don't even look at the bill when I check out these days....if I see a book that I want I buy it.....so does he......only he won't ever get rid of it.....so we now have 5000 of his books taking up space (and it's Science Fiction which I don't read) and 50 of mine if you don't count the cookbooks


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## texasgirl (Jun 1, 2008)

BajaGringo said:


> I know you are going to laugh at this but go ahead, I am used to it. I remember when I was a kid my dad would bring home these HUGE boxes used to cover refrigerators. They were heavy, thick and much stronger than the boxes typically used today. I would spend hours creating a fort, space ship or just a private hideaway, cutting holes for windows and making a doorway in. Using magic markers I would make the inside anything I wanted and it was more fun than any toy they could have bought. I saw a photo the other day my mom took back in the early 60's of one of my "Space Ships". It was quite an invention and I remember friends begging for me to "let them in".
> 
> Creativity in that regards is lost with a lot of kids today. They just turn on the video game...


 
Are you kidding? We loved doing that!! That is the best thing in the world to do when your a kid! You can make it anything you want it to be!! I had one that was a car. Door opened and everything, lol. Sat it on a skate board and friends and I took turns pushing each other 
Thank you for bringing that memory to the surface!!!!


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## expatgirl (Jun 1, 2008)

I know what you mean TXgirl......my dad was the "Dad of the Year" for doing that.....


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## GB (Jun 1, 2008)

BajaGringo said:


> I know you are going to laugh at this but go ahead, I am used to it. I remember when I was a kid my dad would bring home these HUGE boxes used to cover refrigerators. They were heavy, thick and much stronger than the boxes typically used today. I would spend hours creating a fort, space ship or just a private hideaway, cutting holes for windows and making a doorway in. Using magic markers I would make the inside anything I wanted and it was more fun than any toy they could have bought. I saw a photo the other day my mom took back in the early 60's of one of my "Space Ships". It was quite an invention and I remember friends begging for me to "let them in".
> 
> Creativity in that regards is lost with a lot of kids today. They just turn on the video game...


I won't laugh. I will completely back you up on that one. I remember when my folks got a new fridge. We must have played with that box for at least a year. That was the best fort ever.


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## Katie H (Jun 1, 2008)

BajaGringo said:


> I know you are going to laugh at this but go ahead, I am used to it. I remember when I was a kid my dad would bring home these HUGE boxes used to cover refrigerators. They were heavy, thick and much stronger than the boxes typically used today. I would spend hours creating a fort, space ship or just a private hideaway, cutting holes for windows and making a doorway in. Using magic markers I would make the inside anything I wanted and it was more fun than any toy they could have bought. I saw a photo the other day my mom took back in the early 60's of one of my "Space Ships". It was quite an invention and I remember friends begging for me to "let them in".
> 
> Creativity in that regards is lost with a lot of kids today. They just turn on the video game...




Not laughin' here!  Just wish I had a great big box to play in this afternoon.

Always loved playing with big boxes and played with them until they were as floppy as a linen hankie and in shreds.  Nothing like sliding down a huge hill inside a big old box!!!  I put many miles on boxes doing that.

What a great memory to bring forward!! Thanks.


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## suziquzie (Jun 1, 2008)

LOL!!!! 

My kids are out in the backyard right now in a big box!!!!


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## middie (Jun 1, 2008)

Omg I forgot about my own house I made from a fridge box lol.
I remember I cried cause it rained and ruined my home !


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## JoAnn L. (Jun 1, 2008)

My brothers bike (I didn't have one) 
Bubble Pipe
Pick Up Sticks
Jump Rope
Jacks
My doll ( she had a little opening for her mouth and when my parents made me eat celery and I couldn't swallow it, I would put it in her mouth).
Paperdolls. I would sit for hours and cut them out. What a fun memory.


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## Katie H (Jun 1, 2008)

JoAnn L. said:


> Paper Dolls. I would sit for hours and cut them out. What a fun memory.



Thanks for bringing up another cherished memory, JoAnn.  I, too, loved paperdolls.  I had suit boxes (Anyone remember those?) full of paperdolls.  Even had a collection of the Dionne quintuplets paperdolls.

By the time I was about 10-years-old, I began to design my own.  I went the whole 9 yards.  Clothing, dishes, furniture, everything.  I drew, colored, pasted, cut-out for hours and hours.  Had a ball!!!!


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## The Z (Jun 1, 2008)

Slot Cars
Lincoln Logs
BB Gun

I, too, was a fan of boxes... but we didn't get big boxes often enough to have them consistently available.  We did, however, have a barn with hay and straw bales with which we made miles of tunnels and great forts.  I don't know if hay/straw qualifies as a childhood "toy", but I know we sure had fun with it.


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## BajaGringo (Jun 1, 2008)

My dad's office was around the corner from a warehouse for a large appliance store in Long Beach back then. He would have lunch at the corner diner and became good friends with many that worked there. I was very lucky and would get them (large boxes) quite often!

God, life was so simple back then!


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## Katie H (Jun 1, 2008)

BajaGringo said:


> My dad's office was around the corner from a warehouse for a large appliance store in Long Beach back then. He would have lunch at the corner diner and became good friends with many that worked there. I was very lucky and would get them (large boxes) quite often!
> 
> God, life was so simple back then!



Oh, you were golden back then.  What a treat!

We lived in a very small town (500  people) but were friends with the folks who owned a furniture/appliance store.  Yep!  We got freebie boxes often, too.  My mother always rolled her eyes when she saw me or one of my 4 brothers or sisters dragging a box up the street.  Still, the box was a cheap babysitter. 

I'm now longing  for those days.


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## BajaGringo (Jun 1, 2008)

OK, that's it! I am going down to the local appliance store, bringing home a refrigerator box with a new set of magic markers in every color. Who's coming over to help???


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## luvs (Jun 1, 2008)

i'm on my way! mine was a dresser box. i loved that box!


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## BajaGringo (Jun 1, 2008)

OK, I'll make the Cadillac Margaritas...


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## luvs (Jun 1, 2008)

i'll bring steaks!


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## BajaGringo (Jun 1, 2008)

This is getting good...


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## Chief Longwind Of The North (Jun 2, 2008)

BajaGringo said:


> I know you are going to laugh at this but go ahead, I am used to it. I remember when I was a kid my dad would bring home these HUGE boxes used to cover refrigerators. They were heavy, thick and much stronger than the boxes typically used today. I would spend hours creating a fort, space ship or just a private hideaway, cutting holes for windows and making a doorway in. Using magic markers I would make the inside anything I wanted and it was more fun than any toy they could have bought. I saw a photo the other day my mom took back in the early 60's of one of my "Space Ships". It was quite an invention and I remember friends begging for me to "let them in".
> 
> Creativity in that regards is lost with a lot of kids today. They just turn on the video game...



A piece of notebook paper and a marker turned the back of the bus seat in front of me and my freind into the cockpit of Fireball XL5. I took on the character role of Robby the Robot.

A picknick table bench became a high-performance jet fighter for me, long before I ever heard of Snoopy and his "Sopwith Camel".

A small, circular clearing in the woods was our time machine. If you rode your bicycle clockwise, you went forward in time. Ride counter-clockwise to go back. 

I simple click-style inckpen clicker mechanizm was a three stage rocket that got me into trouble in 2nd grade as it traveled skyward, pushed by my hand until the teach called "Yes Bobby, what do you need?". I needed more work to take up my time as my assignment was completed and I was day dreaming of space, evidently.

Imagination was/is a truly great asset. It can turn stick into a sword, or a picknick bench into a jet fighter.  I now try to inspire that imagination and creativity for others.  I organized and made a reality our town's anual cardboard sled race.  This year will be our fifth.  It's a whole lot of fun for the twenty-five or so teams that participate every year.  We're just trying to figure out how to get more people involved.

I too thank you for inspiring those long ago memories.

Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North


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## BajaGringo (Jun 2, 2008)

When my grandson comes down I don't even let him watch TV. We spend all our time together on the beach building sand castles and playing simple games that don't require RAM memory or even so much as an AC outlet...


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## YT2095 (Jun 2, 2008)

1) a Science-fair 150 in 1 electronics set.
2) a Chemistry set.
3) my Bicycle (it allowed me to go further distances for my Dumpster diving exploits)

I used to supply most of my own "toys" from these dumpsters, broken TV sets and radios and all sorts of interesting goodies


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## radhuni (Jun 3, 2008)

A red tricycle and a brown wooden doll.


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## GB (Jun 3, 2008)

I forgot about my big yellow egg. At least that is what I called it. It was like a little car type thing I sat in. It has 4 wheels like a car. It was bright yellow and round. We kept it at my grandparents house and I loves driving around in it whenever I visited them.


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## suziquzie (Jun 3, 2008)

Magnifying glasses. 
My 2 smallest are right now laughing hysterically making each other's eye bigger with them..... they each have one. 
I use to love starting stuff on fire with one in the sun....
Ahem I mean watching my brother do it!


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## Saphellae (Jun 3, 2008)

I didn't know that actually worked Suzi!  (maybe the sun was never strong enough here!)


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## suziquzie (Jun 3, 2008)

Leaves work the best..... 
So I've heard.


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## LT72884 (Jun 3, 2008)

I loved barby. she was HOT!!!!! LOL..... gunpowder was my favorite toy, no joke. i used to take three wires and hook one of them to the positive side of a 9 volt battery and then from there to some steal wool inside of a pipe bomb. the second wire would go from negitive of the battery to a block of wood and wrap around in a coil. the third wire would be at the opisite end of the wood and be in a coil and then go to the steal wool. i would have a mouse trap set and when it was tripped, the metal part would connect the two coils together creating a simple circut and thus exploding the pipe bomb. i would love to blow things up in my early years (8-12)


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## BajaGringo (Jun 6, 2008)

I remember when I was a kid they had cap guns and you could buy the rolls of caps. We would carefully cut out the caps until we had several hundred and stuff them into the empty barrel of an old pen. We would make a fuse out of paper towel by tightly rolling a thin strip and dipping it into cooking oil. 

Oh what fun...


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## Katie H (Jun 6, 2008)

Omigosh, Baja.  I'd forgotten about cap guns.  Even though I'm a girl, I grew up in a neighborhood where I was one of the only two girls where there were lots of boys.

One of our favorite things to do was to separate the cap "circles" as you did and pound the thunder out of them on a piece of cinder block with a hammer. 

I can't tell you how many times my daddy yelled at me for not being able to find his hammer.  I still remember the smell of those escapades.


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## Uncle Bob (Jun 6, 2008)

MMMmmmmmmm Loved the smell of the caps...


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## BajaGringo (Jun 6, 2008)

Today parents would be horrified if their 7 or 8 year olds could walk into a store and buy cap guns, model glue or spray paint. All things that we cuold and did buy as kids.

Amazing


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## AMSeccia (Jun 7, 2008)

Holy cow, I can almost SMELL the cap gun!  Sad thing was I never could get more caps (no $$).  That one brought back memories.  I'm not sure all parents would freak about cap guns.  Afterall, paintball guns are very popular, so are those foam pellet guns.  

Boy things sure are different, aren't they?  I never thought I'd hear myself say that.


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## AMSeccia (Jun 7, 2008)

suziquzie said:


> Leaves work the best.....
> So I've heard.


 
Oh my ... another flashback!  I remember doing this with Dentyne wrappers (wierd!)


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## GB (Jun 7, 2008)

Uncle Bob said:


> MMMmmmmmmm Loved the smell of the caps...


We used to say they smelled like "dinner"

I remember popping them by scraping our thumb nails across them. Good times!


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## Claire (Jun 7, 2008)

Mom used to joke that I wore my dolls out.  I just loved them, from baby dolls of my early years to the earliest Barbies.  

I hated games, but loved color crayons and pencils and paints.  

My all time favorite doll was what I called my "hair permanent doll"; a large doll with long hair who came with a beauty parlor chair, hair curlers, etc.  

I have a history of bad luck with toys, especially dolls.  All of my Christmas presents were stollen from me at a refueling stop in the Azores when I was 3.  Then my two old dolls were stollen from my storage area when I was in my twenties.  

BOoo Hooo.


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## Chief Longwind Of The North (Jun 8, 2008)

GB said:


> We used to say they smelled like "dinner"
> 
> I remember popping them by scraping our thumb nails across them. Good times!



We did that too.  Occasionally though, if you did it wrong, the powder could get trapped under a thumbnail and give you a good burn.

I used to tape a strip accross my bb-catcher bullseye and shoot them with my bb gun from about 20 yards away.  Maybe that's how I got to be a pretty good shot with rifles.

You don't want to know what we did with firecrackers.  I never told my kids about those adventures and shenanigans.  Think of dark summer nights, with arrows flying staight up, fircrackers with lit fuses tied to the arrow shafts, and not knowing where that arrow would land.  Hey, we were kids, indistructable and immortal.

Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North


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## abjcooking (Jun 8, 2008)

trampoline 
balance beam
basket ball arcade game
kinda like life size leggos, but they were tubes and slates that fit together.  I liked to make a house out of it and make the roof into a slide.


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## elaine l (Jun 8, 2008)

We used to hit the caps with rocks.  

Loved Barbie, Midge, Ken and the whole gang.
Baby dolls, Jane West doll, dolls, dolls, dolls.


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## buckytom (Jun 9, 2008)

Goodweed of the North said:


> We did that too. Occasionally though, if you did it wrong, the powder could get trapped under a thumbnail and give you a good burn.
> 
> I used to tape a strip accross my bb-catcher bullseye and shoot them with my bb gun from about 20 yards away. Maybe that's how I got to be a pretty good shot with rifles.
> 
> ...


 
ok, this *is *getting kinda weird, i admit it.

we used to do all of those things.

i remember those under-the-nail burns from scraping caps. what about finding the few un-exploded firecrackers from a spent pack on the morning of july 5th, with really short fuses? how many of those went off in your hand and gave you "fred flinstone fingers"? 
my mom never had to wake me up early that day, and she never knew why. 

ozzy practiced a lot with the bb guns. he put a bb between my toes once, right through the top of my sneaker. he was trying to wing my foot after i sat sat down in front of him in his room, and put my feet up blocking the tv. i remember feeling something hot between my big toe and (whaddya call the index toe? it's not like you point with it...) the next one. i thought i had a bug in my sock, so i freaked out hopping around. he thought he really hurt my foot because he pumped the bb gun so many times.

and what about "percussive bat hunting"? in a large field surrounded by woods, using a wrist rocket to launch larger ordinance into the sky (cherry bombs, m-80's, etc.) and watch the bats dive on it. if you had nerve and waited long enough on the fuse, it would detonate about 40 or 50 feet overhead, just as a bat dove in. the stunned bats would drop to the ground, and we'd run up to it with flashlights and sticks, poking away and examining der fledermaus until it woke up and arose "like a bat outta he11" through our circle. we screamed and ran, and then started over.

ahhhh, good times.


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## Maverick2272 (Jun 9, 2008)

First a bicycle, then a moped. We lived 12 miles outside of town, it was the only way to get into town to play. Got a 22 carbine when I was 14 and a shotgun when I was 15, used em to hunt. Never played with guns or treated them with disrespect.
Dad's gun powder, that was another story. Me and a friend really got into making home made RPG's and bombs. Blew up a cement silo (it was old to begin with) by the time we were thru (don't tell Homeland Insecurity!). My friend even took a chunk out of his leg when his RPG jammed and went off. Made the Des Moines Register, and he blamed it all on McGuyver!
I think I used up all my Karma and luck just getting out of childhood alive...


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## Saphellae (Jun 9, 2008)

I played Monopoly against my stuffed animals. 

I always won.


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## Chief Longwind Of The North (Jun 9, 2008)

buckytom said:


> ...and what about "percussive bat hunting"? in a large field surrounded by woods, using a wrist rocket to launch larger ordinance into the sky (cherry bombs, m-80's, etc.) and watch the bats dive on it. if you had nerve and waited long enough on the fuse, it would detonate about 40 or 50 feet overhead, just as a bat dove in. the stunned bats would drop to the ground, and we'd run up to it with flashlights and sticks, poking away and examining der fledermaus until it woke up and arose "like a bat outta he11" through our circle. we screamed and ran, and then started over.
> 
> ahhhh, good times.


 
Never did the bats.  There weren't enough of them flying in the night skies in the gravel pits.  Now if I'd gone over to the cemetary at night, there were lot of bugs winging through the air.  I would have had a better chance.

But we did shoot at the cliff swallows that made their nests at the top of the gravel pits.  We'd stomp on the ground above the pits and they'd come out dive-bombing us.  It was uncanny the way they could just dodge the bb's at will.

We did have to hide, tuck, and run in the cemetary though for lighting off M-80's at night.  My partner in crime was the son of the cemetary caretaker.  His Dad came out with a truck and spotlight looking for "the maniac shooting up tombstones with a shotgun".  A busy-body neighbor had called him and told him that story.  We didn't get caught.  Those headstones made great places to duck behind when the spotlight came too close.  We headed for the woods, made a quick trip westward for a half-mile to the next road, and then walked back to the house as if we were just walking back from town, a 5-mile walk that we made frequently in the summer.  Hitch-hiking wasn't so dangerous back then.

BT, we've got to hook up by phone and exchange stories, or open another thread for those youthful adventures.  I'm still amazed at how close our lives mirror each other, and with both of us even having the same birthday.  It's like you're my other half, just as mischiveious, and hair brained.  But I got the looks.  Sorry 'bout that bro.

Seeeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North


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