"You Sank My Battleship!" (Favorite Childhood Toys and Games.)

[seoulsearch]

20 bonus points to Test-f-i for posting a picture of Lincoln Logs. That was really, really cool!!!

Zero, have you ever been able to find another helicopter like it to replace it? One of my siblings works for a huge corporation but right there in his office, he has an entire shelf of small toys he's collected to keep him grounded and smiling.

When I was young my parents were watching every penny and I couldn't have things like novelty pens and erasers like many of the other kids. I was especially envious of the girls who had Hello Kitty accessories. Now that I'm an adult, if I see something I really like (I'm very picky--I don't just buy anything with HK on it) like a cool stationery set, I still buy it.

Yeah, it probably really unnerved the inmates I wrote to receive 8-page letters on Hello Kitty paper, but hey.

At least it made ME smile (and one of them said he actually liked it because the only colors in prison were black, white, and gray.)

 

[BananaPie]

Goodness! My sister and I played Barbies (including Ken & Skipper) well into our teen years.

Dawn doll is 6 inches tall. I still have this doll 40 years later. O.O

Spirograph. I still have the set from the 70's (minus the box and pens). A new "retro" set was bought last year, which is still mint in its original box.

Legos
Monopoly
Battleship
Chinese jump rope
Clue board game
We played Chess, like royal time.

Jacks at school, at home & at church. Real Girls carried their jacks with 'em!

Pick-up sticks

Hopscotch. All boys had cooties; that's why they never played hopscotch.

 

[seoulsearch]

BananaPie officially gets 20 bonus points for Spirograph--I used to love that, especially when using different colored inks (the only colors I had were red, green, blue, and black, but I made the most of them, doggone it!)

I also have to throw in Chinese Checkers for an honorable mention. I also had a toy "lazer" gun that made like 10 different sounds, including a voice synthesizer (I liked a lot of the boy's toys a lot better than most of the girl's toys. Never even actually owned a Barbie--I was too busy pretending to shoot things and swing at them with my lightsaber, which sadly, was an old-school version that didn't do anything cool... It didn't even make noises or light up.)

And in high school, we used to spend our lunch break playing Euchre.

 

[BananaPie]

Roller-skates then. I don't own these anymore.

​


Roller-skates now. Totally Breezy!
​

 

[seoulsearch]

OH man, I tried rollerblades when I was in college... but barely made it around the block.

For some reason, I just wasn't suited for them... my ankles were burning the whole time... and I would go back to old-school rollerskates any day. It makes me think of my Christian grade school's roller skating parties. When a slow song came on, every girl hoped a guy would ask her to skate and hold her hand as they zipped around the rink, with the disco ball lights flashing all around in full force.

Ah... those were the good old days. (And I still wish a nice guy would ask me to skate.)

P.S. Who else out there "stops" on rollerskates... by crashing into something???!!! *Raises her hand.*

NOT that I would ever purposely crash into a nice guy whom I was hoping would ask me to skate, of course.

 

[Lynx]

I did rollerblades for a long time. First pair I got for christmas, size 7. I took them out instantly and proceeded to inch up and down the driveway. I didn't go very fast that first day, but I spent a lot of time in the next six months cautiously teaching myself to skate. By the time I took my first fall I was pretty good at it.

Of course as I got older I got impatient with the relatively slow top speed and started using my bike more and more and the rollerblades less and less.

 

[BananaPie]

RCA record player... ...forerunner of iTunes.

My sister and I were the only kids in the neighborhood with a tape recorder and a transportable record player. The neighborhood kids would come over to our house to hang-out to play records, usually "45 vinyls," and then record the music on their cassette tapes for them to take home.

You're not gonna believe this, but it was major, M A J O R tons of fun for hours on end to record from a record player. Kids had to be very quite during the recording, and then we'd play the cassette back to hear if anybody had made a sound whatever.

If a kid would ruin the recording by making a sound, we'd all gripe on the kid; erase the recording and start over. There was a sense of cooperation, responsible leadership and a sense of sharing one's "work" by having "good behavior." Those were the days when innocence actually had meaning among kids/teens.

Mom would make spaghetti or lasagna and bake Italian pastry for the neighborhood kids hanging-out in my house during our music-play-time.

 

[seoulsearch]

Somebody shiver my timbers.

BananaPie is scoring points through the roof!

I had totally forgotten about RCA toy record players--I had one as well and literally spent hours with "read-along" books that told you to turn the page with a cheery DING! I only had about 4 books and records (all Disney stories, if I remember correctly), but I loved them and read/listend to them over and over.

My Mom always marvels that even though my parents are not readers (they pretty much only read things for their classes, church, and ministry), all of their kids turned out to love reading.

As for me, I'm sure that little record player probably had something to do with it. (Ironically, I've never tried an audiobook as an adult...) DING!!

P.S. Banana, the next time you have a gathering and Italian food is involved, please excuse me as I sneak in through the back door.

I promise not to make a sound!

 

[BananaPie]

I had totally forgotten about RCA toy record players--I had one as well and literally spent hours with "read-along" books that told you to turn the page with a cheery DING! I only had about 4 books and records (all Disney stories, if I remember correctly), but I loved them and read/listend to them over and over.

Good Lord! Kim, we had those "read aloud" Disney books too.
Here's a sample video. The recording is in English, but the book is in French. LOL.

[video=youtube;MZRviPiQx2I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZRviPiQx2I&spfreload=10[/video]


​...and you will always be welcome in my house. Hugs, sister.

 

[AgeofKnowledge]

We played war, cowboys and Indians, street ball, football in the street, hide-n-seek, etc... Sometimes this led to fist fights.

 

[seoulsearch]

We played war, cowboys and Indians, street ball, football in the street, hide-n-seek, etc... Sometimes this led to fist fights.

I can totally see how "hide'n'seek" could turn into a good old-fashioned fist fight... "You were supposed to hide in the CLOSET, dummy! BAM!!" Ha ha ha.

Just kidding, Age!

The last time I played H'n'S was with a sibling's family and it was in the dark, with flashlights. I had actually hidden behind a rack of clothes and the person looking around didn't actually see me, but I THOUGHT they had spotted me and therefore, let out an exasperated, "DOGGONE IT!!"

Thereby, giving away my presence.

Have I mentioned that while some games are fun... I'm not very good at them!

 

[Desdichado]

It never required me to use my brain. The vain and repetitive nature of it rivaled the worst "praise and worship" music...and I loved it.

[video=youtube;sYWGkFXQHO0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYWGkFXQHO0[/video]

 

[MissCris]

This was one of my favorites...

 

[seoulsearch]

Good Lord! Kim, we had those "read aloud" Disney books too.
Here's a sample video. The recording is in English, but the book is in French. LOL. ​...and you will always be welcome in my house. Hugs, sister.

Banana, that was awesome!! I had that very same book and read/listened to it countless times. You gave me back a piece of my childhood today! And, I still shudder (and am slightly afraid) when I hear Maleficent's voice!

 

[maxwel]

When I was little, my parents gave me this. ^^

I guess they didn't want to spoil me.

Boy did that backfire...
it was a wonder toy!

I could dig with it, poke with it, sword fight with it.
It was a dump truck loader, a catapult, a head bonker.
I could even use it as a mirror, and comb my hair.

It was almost as good as the Christmas my parents gave me an empty box.

: )

 

[tourist]

View attachment 93595

When I was little, my parents gave me this. ^^

I guess they didn't want to spoil me.

Boy did that backfire...
it was a wonder toy!

I could dig with it, poke with it, sword fight with it.
It was a dump truck loader, a catapult, a head bonker.
I could even use it as a mirror, and comb my hair.

It was almost as good as the Christmas my parents gave me an empty box.

: )

Is this a silver spoon?

 

[PopClick]

I wasn't a huge fan of board games, but I liked one called Stratego. I also liked building things with construx, which was kind of like k'nex I guess. I built trebuchets, spaceships, and all kinds of stuff. You could also hook up motors and lights to whatever you built. I decided the motors that came with the set weren't powerful enough, and ended up taking one from a hand mixer and powering it with a 9-volt battery. I made a ridiculously fast little car that had the crazy motor strapped to it with rubber bands and such.

Most of the time I spent playing was outdoors, climbing on stuff, having races and contests with other kids. I remember a dead-hang contest that still burns me to this day because I think I could have won. The bar we were hanging from was such a large diameter that it favored kids with larger hands, and I couldn't get my hands around it. I always wondered how it would have ended up if the bar was smaller.

We had this large plastic barrel from a car wash place, and there was a hole cut in one end that was big enough to crawl inside. So one kid would get inside the barrel and someone else would push it down a hill.

I'm young enough to have grown up with electronic games, but I didn't play them that often. I absolutely fell in love with a WWII first-person shooter though (yes, I am fully aware that playing such games disqualifies me from going to heaven. I decided it was worth it. ) and the game honestly helped shape me into a different person. I don't mean that in a bad way, either. It's funny, the things in our lives that can be catalysts for growth or change.

 

[psychomom]

favorite childhood pastime?

watching God make dirt..

 

[seoulsearch]

favorite childhood pastime?

watching God make dirt..

You worked at a crematorium as a child??? Wasn't that against child labor laws?!

("Ashes to ashes"... dust to dust"...)

 

[Mo0448]

Sorry and "getting in trouble" board game & LEGOS!! Here's a million dollar question...how is it that Legos have only gotten more expensive as time has gone by? I remember when a huge set of legos would only take you back like 40 or 50 bucks now a giant lego castle is like 100+ dollars ...It was just fun building stuff...I still get some of my friends and family together and we play Taboo, Headbands, and apples to apples...those still make for alot of laughs and inside jokes