Thursday, September 30, 2010

Flashback Friday: The Toys of Childhood




Mocha with Linda
hosts this fun meme. Go here to play!

Oh, and once again I'm combining this with another fun meme, Company Girl Coffee.


What toys do you remember from your childhood?--I can remember, as a very little girl, getting a baby doll for Christmas that I absolutely loved. This was one of the first dolls that actually felt soft, like a baby, instead of being made out of hard plastic. (I am showing my age here!)

I remember it had a bottle with fake milk in it that never actually came out, but it could look like the baby was drinking it. I loved that doll!

I was never into the Chatty Cathy-type doll, because I had seen a Twilight Zone episode in which that type of doll came to life and killed a family. Eeeesh!

However, as you'll see in the next question, dolls soon became supplanted by a few passions: reading, writing, and recording. It's amazing how at a very young age, my future career was already being presaged!

What did you like to do to entertain yourself?--My sister and I created elaborate stories that we acted out. We were Kay and Donna, two teen-aged sisters (several years older than we actually were, of course.) Kay and Donna were pretty, grown-up, and had boyfriends.

Sometimes when we went out to eat with our parents, we were thrilled to get to sit in our own booth so we could pretend to be Kay and Donna.

My dad had a reel-to-reel tape recorder when we were little girls, and we would record ourselves singing and having our own radio show. I never dreamed that I would grow up to have my own radio shows!



Later, when technology graduated to cassette tape recorders, I would interview anyone who would let me. Some of the funniest recordings were those in which I was interviewing my baby brother and my little nieces. I wish I still had some of those cassettes--and something to play them on!

Mostly, I would read. My favorite thing to do was sit in my bed with my knees up, getting totally and completely lost in a book. A couple of times my knees actually got locked in that position--no lie!



Did you mostly play inside or outside? Did you ride a bike all over the neighborhood?

As I look back on my childhood, it's really amazing how much time I did spend outside. There were days my mom sent us outdoors, pretty much with instructions not to come back in until she told us to.

That was a much safer era, and kids could play outside and even run around the neighborhood without much fear. I feel really sad for the children of today who missed out on that more innocent time.

My sister Lisa and I would play outside tirelessly, but it usually wasn't organized sports. For example, we would hike through the woods across the street and pretend to be missionaries in the jungle. (Most of our play seemed to involve role-playing and/or pretending!)

Lisa was very athletic and would throw a football, etc, but I shied away from sports, basically because I stunk at them. However, I did have a bike, and I absolutely loved riding it.

Was there a toy you always wanted and never got to have? I would have loved to have had a Barbie Dream House. My cousin had one, and I coveted it strongly.

But all in all, if I had books and paper, I was pretty contented.




Hmmm...things haven't really changed much!

Click on the icon to check out Flashback Friday!




P.S. I hope it's OK that I'm once again combining Flashback Friday and Company Girl Coffee, another meme I enjoy. Click the icon below to participate in Company Girl, which is hosted by the lovely Home Sanctuary!




13 comments:

Nel said...

Enjoyed your memories Cindy! I think the doll you are thinking of might of been a Thumbelina. Mine had the bottle also, I always thought that was so cool when I was little.
until next time... nel

Mocha with Linda said...

What fun. Seems like I remember having one of those milk bottles.

I'm going to link you up so others will come visit you!

Mocha with Linda said...

Oh, and I meant to comment on the tape recorder! We had one that looked almost identical!

Cindy Swanson said...

Reading other people's memories is stirring up more of my own, Linda! What a fun meme!

Grow Line Inc. said...

What wonderful memories I have of my childhood. I had my beloved baby doll. Her name was Ashley. I took her with me everywhere. She was even in our family photographs!
One day she got ran over and so my loving Dad had to take her to the 'hospital'. When he arrived back home she was as good as 'new':).
My mom had one of those all plasic dolls you were referring to as well. She called her 'Julinne'.We have a photograph of my mom when she was a child holding Julinne in her little wooden rocker and now we have pictures of my daughter in the same rocker holding dear old Julinne. Our Little Lady(4) adored her and played with her so often until our our Gent amputated her her leg a few months ago. Now she spends her days resting in the top of the closet...

Barbara H. said...

I remember all-plastic dolls and those magic bottles, too. And I also coveted a Barbie Dream House! One of my cousins had a grandmother on the other side of her family who bought her very nice things, and she got her one.

Reading was probably my favorite activity as well.

Cathy said...

Love your memories. I spent a lot of time reading too when I was a kid. Still love it.

Unknown said...

I cannot imagine sending my kids out to play and expect them to stay gone all day. I remember doing that as a kid...kind of sad. The world has changed!

One More Equals Four said...

My sisters and I used to spend HOURS recording ourselves. We still have a couple of the cassettes and have gotten some good laughs listening to our concerts and commercials. We also loved to record cooking shows in the kitchen...we made some interesting concoctions!

Isn't it sad that we cannot let our children out to play and explore like we used to...it is a different world.

Thanks for sharing your memories with us! Have a great weekend!

Kathy ... aka Nana said...

It's hard to imagine how things have changed so much, isn't it? That we could go outside and play all over the neighborhood for hours and hours and hours on end with no adult supervision and today's kids can't even go outside in their own backyards without someone there to keep an eye on them. How sad.

I, too, wasn't athletic while my sister was; I would have rather been inside reading. ;-)

Jim said...

Nice thoughts you wrote of here, Cindy. And I want to check soon about your radio gigs.

I thouhgt it was neat that your mom would send you out with orders to spend the day. We went out a lot and might spend the day on our own.
The only time I went out under orders was the time Mom chased me out with a broom. We were both laughing although she was pretty upset.

I never rode off the farm on my bike although it might have been alright. I suppose I could have gotten permission for that depending on where I wanted to go.
..

Teresa Dawn said...

My sister wanted to role play with me all the time. I did sometimes, but usually I wasn't interested. Maybe because she always gave me the bad roles (even though she was younger). I do remember we'd role play that we were each other though sometimes haha!

bekahcubed said...

I grew up a generation late, when most other kids were being kept indoors--but my mom encouraged us to be outdoors. Since we were homeschooled, we had more time than most children and I think we spent more of our waking time outdoors than in. Mom, of course, spent her time trying to feed her very-active-outdoors brood!

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