a new addition and some old thoughts

[dkhoward]

Just had a new addition to the family. My first grandbaby and new grandson, Aiden Troy, joined the family on Wednesday afternoon. (pictures to follow).

As I was sitting around thinking about my kids and them my own childhood, my remebering turned to toys and all the things I had as a kid, that my kids had and which ones I particularly remember.

One of my favorite toys was a real metal Erector Set complete with lots of little screws and washers and square nuts, metal girders and plates, gears, wheels and motors. I spent hours putting little nuts on little screws, faithfully following the instructions in the book to build cranes and derricks and ferris wheels. Eventually I turned to designing my own creations. Somewhere along the way in one of our moves, that Erector set either got left or got tossed. All I do remember is how many quiet hours I spent engaged in real creative thinking as I worked to solve problems of balance, leverage, motion and movement.

WHat toys do you remember having a really profound impact on you?

Dennis

[Uncle Cracker]

WHat toys do you remember having a really profound impact on you?

Chemistry set...

[siliconbauhaus]

I had mechano....the english version of the erector set..... I used to mess about with it but I preferred lego.

Star Wars came out and I started playing with my Dad's FAC kit (mechano for engineers) and tried to build a AT-AT. I got the leg assemblies working and then decided it was too much like hard work. Oh well.

These days you can get all of it with Lego.......and none of the aggro of the nuts and bolts.

[ironhat]

Erector for me as well. The tower crane with the electric lift and some army men climbing up and shooting down gave hours of fun. I*still* have it!

[MilDoc]

Chemistry set ...

Microscope ...

Mineralogy set ...

Visible man, woman, dog, and horse plastic models.

[Ed62]

Congrats on the new addition. You'll enjoy him.

For me it was a chemistry set and a microscope.

Ed

[twistsol]

It's got to be Legos for me. They must have been much cheaper then because I had a large toy chest full of them. The best part was that you could build a boat or plane or house and blow it up with firecrackers and almost never damage any of the pieces. Older brothers can teach you a great deal.

[MilDoc]

It's got to be Legos for me. They must have been much cheaper then because I had a large toy chest full of them. The best part was that you could build a boat or plane or house and blow it up with firecrackers and almost never damage any of the pieces. Older brothers can teach you a great deal.

WOW! I blew up so many green "Army Men" in my mom's front yard there are still pieces of them buried there after 45+ years!

Wish I had known that about Legos. Could have saved a ton of allowance money!

[mpc]

Paul, thanks for the laugh - I needed one tonight! Army men bits forever in the yard... haha...

For me, it was Erector sets and Legos. I had thousands of Legos - the old sets, before all the new-fangled specialty sets with gears, u-joint couplers, etc. I wish those had been around when I was a kid.

Never blew up Lego creations with firecrackers or anything... but I do remember making flat-bottmed boats with a friend... then crashing them into each other in the street gutters. Or crashing cars inside the house. Until we missed picking up a two-knob piece and mom stepped on it barefoot. For you Lego deprived folks: Legos are small, brick-shaped plastic bits with very sharp 90 degree corners; a two-knob piece is a fairly small one. Stepping on one is not a pleasant experience. Nor is running from mom.

Given the price of Legos today, I wish I still had my old collection. It'd be worth ten times what I sold it for decades ago. The worst part about Legos - at least as they existed in my childhood days: no curved pieces. Making monorail tracks was tough when one had only 90 degree corners to work with.

mpc

[Mrs. Wallnut]

Congrats on the new edition to your family.

Even though I was a girl I remember playing with legos of my cousins, mostly boys, and playing with Tonka trucks. I was a tom boy and was the happiest with a hammer and nails and a piece of wood that my dad would let me make things out of.

But I also had a girlie side at times and got an easy bake oven one year and used that all the time, when I could get enough change to go and buy the little packets of mix.

[Pappy]

An Erector set was a must have for most boys growing up in the 50's and 60's. A coupls of other things that come to mind are my first radio, a crystal radio kit, and a race car set.

The radio got more static than music, but it worked. The race cars were the ones about 2" long. The pick ups on the cars were finicky, but I had hours of fun with it. I graduated from that track to the bigger, faster cars that you ran at the big indoor race tracks. Maybe that's what fueled my need for speed as I got older.

[cabinetman]

I also had an erector set. I also had a building block set that the parts were like actual white CBS blocks, and there were different window choices, doors, roof design etc. Can't remember the name of it though, it wasn't legos. I also had the Lincoln Logs.

I do remember a Superman outfit a relative gave me as a gift. I was around 9-10 years old. It was cool, had everything. I had to try it out. Went up to the roof and flew off the edge. There must have been some Kryptonite around, cause I flew straight down. Got a sprained ankle.

[Uncle Cracker]

I had that same block set, C-Man... Dang it! Now I'm gonna be sitting here all day trying to remember what they were called

I also had an Erector set, Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys, and metal Tonka toys. I was pre-Lego, though. My little brother had them. I also had an enormous old Hallicrafters short-wave transceiver. It broadened my horizons.

[crokett]

Erector Set. I loved mine. I had 3 or 4 boxes of parts. At one point I built a gizmo that would climb the stairs by itself. I also was into model rockets for a few years until a scale model of the Saturn V blew up on the launch pad - faulty engine.

[Scottydont]

Erector set and Legos for me! They were better alternatives than me taking apart a perfectly good TV set before Dad got home.