What were my favorite toys as young child? Thinking back to long, long ago, only a few things stand out, and, in retrospect, I guess you could call them construction toys.
In the time of my early childhood, it was common to give a very young child blocks to play with. A small collection of wooden blocks, variously shaped, plus an active imagination was enough to fuel hours of play.
It was mostly a solitary activity, best described as building things—imagining a house or castle, with a secret passage or a sliding door. I can remember calling my mother to come and see a construction that I would eagerly show and explain to her, but the important part was the story of what it all represented.
Looking back, I realize that it involved elementary mechanical skill but lots of imagination, fueled by radio programs and children’s books, first read to me and later that I read myself.
My first blocks gave way to Lincoln Logs, which actually were a specialized version of blocks that could be used to make replicas of a log cabin or fort.
They confined and channeled one’s imagination somewhat but introduced using some shaped construction pieces to copy the pictures of the completed little buildings
The best construction toy, of course, was the Erector Set. The kit was a collection of metal replicas of beams, girders, and similar elements plus parts needed to join them, especially nuts and bolts.
The set included a variety of pictures of ambitious completed constructions, but, of course, with experience and imagination you could learn to design your own.
I enjoyed spending hours and hours, assembling and constructing mechanical structures and contraptions—which also taught me the basics of using tools!
Another source of entertainment and pastime for me in childhood were books. I was fortunate in having a mother and other relatives who patiently read picture books to me when I was very small.
I soon learned to read the words myself and began to explore the world of fiction.
There’s nothing like desire to motivate learning! Because I was so attracted to books and the imaginary worlds and adventures they contained, I was already a reader before I started going to school.
A lot of the books I first enjoyed were commonplace at the time, the Hardy Boys detective and adventure stories, the Bomba, the Jungle Boy tales (a sort of junior version of the Tarzan stories), and a childhood staple, fairy tales.
From Grimms’ Fairy Tales onward, fairy tale stories and books especially fueled the development of my imagination and the formation of values.
How limited we can become if we lose the capacity to imagine another world or a better world or a more advanced one! Without a capacity for imagination, it’s harder to be a very religious person!
A third pastime of childhood was radio. Late weekday afternoons and Saturday and Sunday mornings, there were many radio programs for youngsters.
When it was time for Jack Armstrong, the Lone Ranger, and other radio program heroes. I’d rush into the living room and sit with my ear glued to the radio set to hear and imagine their latest adventures.
Blocks, books, and radio programs were things you could enjoy alone. Games were social activities, playing with others—and that’s another childhood story.
19 January 2021