Friday fun: Childhood toys
There are many influences in our childhood that contribute to who we become as we get older. I think the toys we favour or become attached to when we are little affect us throughout our lives.
I still have my very first cuddly toy, who looks down on me in my study and judges my coding to this day. I have an obvious trait I associate back to it, in that I've always thought penguins were pretty damn cool.
He's 46, faded, down one eye, and has a lot of tea stains because he used to live on my desk in my old house which was regularly trashed by the cat. Sadly, I can't find the photo of him and I together in the early 70's
So, what was your favourite or first memorable toy when you were little? Do you think it has left a permanent impression on you?
11 comments
It's not really a toy strictly. It's a computer game.
The most impressive thing for me was the first home computer in the early 90s and the KOEI's Three Kingdoms series game.
Although it seems that the game screen is very rough, the game is highly playable, especially in the context of The Three Kingdoms era.
This game has accompanied me through the three years of junior high school.
@Ollie Guan I played that game for hours and hours during the summer of '94! Good times...As a wedding gift a friend took me to the local Microcenter and let me pick out everything from the case and power supply to the CRT and speakers I needed to build my first PC. My new bride was not happy.
(For perspective, my first computer game was played on a TRS-80 in 4th and 5th grade. If you think the graphics for Three Kingdoms are rough youve' never played The Oregon Trail!)
@Meg Holbrook I played it for a few hours last night while watching Star Trek TOS and TNG on the "Heroes and Icons" channel!
I still have my childhood teddy bear, he's almost as old as I am.
Over the years, he lost one eye and some fur while cuddling and fighting against other stuffed animals. His very fashionable sweater was knitted by my mother.
This is me with the same bear - a long long time ago
@Thomas SchlegelI don't have any childhood toys, however over the years I noticed that I am in love with dwarfs.You can call it Adulthood Toys 😄
I've been trying to think of a toy I treasured as a kid that left a lasting impression, and I just can't nail one down. I think I had a favorite stuffed animal; an image of a "sew it yourself" pillow with a dog printed on it comes to mind, but no real specifics.
I can say, however, that I read a lot as a kid. I mean A LOT! I would beg my mom to take me to the local library to get new books, and when I was 6-ish she'd just drop me off and go grocery shopping. (This was in the lmid to late 70's, before Adam Walsh first appeared on a milk carton.) I loved "Where the Wild Things Are" and read it until the cover fell off and pages came out. "Call it Courage" introduced me to adventure while "Bridge to Terabithia" taught me how to lose myself in a character.
But...it was John Norman's "Gor" series that really made me a true bookworm. After reading those books I could always be found with a sci-fi or fantasy novel either in my hand or in my bookbag, all the way through college. It's strange to look back at who I was and the man I am remember the books and stories that sucked me in, the good and bad experiences of being a bookworm (being able to curse in elvish didn't really help) and see the influences on my character from the really really good stories.
I'm in the same boat as @Scott Theus - I was a massive reader growing up, and if I wasn't in a classroom, my nose was pressed between two pages.
I remember my very favorite book when I was a kid was The Emperor's New Clothes because I thought it was just the funniest thing that he was walking around naked, even if I didn't understand the complexities of pride and vanity.
Another childhood favorite was The Eleventh Hour, which is a book with an awesome story and a mystery to solve. There was a little sealed envelope at the end of the story that would give you the answers to the puzzles, but I never dared to open it. About a year ago, I found this and a few other Graeme Base books to give to my kids, which made me really happy.
I think the books that had the most impact on me though were fantasy. TOR was on the binding of probably 97% of everything I read as a preteen- young adult. While I've shifted to more contemporary fiction, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the worlds of Terry Brooks et al.
In my childhood, I read books of „Die drei Fragezeichen“ - stories of three schoolboys solving mysteries and crimes. The stories take place in „Rocky Beach“ a fictional city in California.
And you know what? These books and the radio plays are still produced. The same speakers record the plays as 40 years ago. They are cult in Germany. There are live audio plays in big concert halls, sold out in shortest time. Yesterday’s children are today‘s fans, and their children will be the new fans. Up to now, there are 194 radio plays and I still love them.
@Nic Brough -Adaptavist- - I love your penguin. The missing eye and tea stains just prove he's been through some sh*t and made it through.
I had miles of Hot Wheels track that we would run around the house, sometimes out one window and in another, etc.
My mother would flip out when she would come out of the kitchen and the house would look like this :-D:
