Favorite Childhood Toys, Games, Etc.

Gardenlover

Gardenlover

The world needs more love
What was your favorite childhood toy, game or activity.

Mine were:
Toy:
HO Slot Cars - A friends dad build a fantastic track in his basement, which included banked curves and scenery. It also had a separate drag strip. It was the first house I knew to get central air.

Game:
Monopoly, Jarts (now banned) and Kick the Can (at night).

Activities:
Riding bicycles and building clubhouses in the woods
 

Last edited:
Toys were simple for me, coloring books, Chinese checkers, Etch A Scetch, Slinky, Pick Up Sticks, Scrabble, Bow and Arrow, cap guns, kaleidoscopes indoor tents made out of sheets, etc. Outdoors was bike riding, roller skating (clamp on shoes), Red Light Green Light, jump rope, stoop ball, hand ball, Badminton, etc. Also enjoyed swimming and fishing when we could get out to the beach/ocean.
 
My parents weren't poor but they were not rich...I loved the outdoors when I was a youngster...It snowed a lot in North Jersey
when I was a kiddy....I loved ice skates....Mom couldn't afford to get me a pair of skates...So one day, I got my brother's skates,
mind you, they were boy's skates...I put a couple of pairs of socks on and I put my feet in my brother's skates....
My Mom yelled at me, I cried, I must of been around 4th or 5th grade....we had an Ice pond a little ways from our house...
So not telling Mom, I told my cousin to please come with me to the ice pond...She did!!! Not many people were on the
pond....So I put on the "Boy's Skates" and I started skating...My first on skates...I actually did good......

My Mom was wondering where I was...She called my aunt across the street...She told my Mom that her daughter was going
to the pond with your daughter....

My Mom had a fit...She came to the pond and she didn't scoled me, she just softly told me to get off of the pond....
I did and she sat me down to take the skates off....We went home in the car and she told me to stay put, she would
be right back in the car...I was scared, I can remember this for ever.....Mom got in the car and started driving....My cousin
was sitting with me in the back seat...She was really scared....My Mom was driving down Main Street, I thought she was
going to put me in the "Childrens Home.....My cousin started crying....But when my Mom drove in a parking lot, it was
Sears and Roebuck!!!! She got us two girls and carted us into the store....Mom went right to the Ice Skates, sat me down
and a man came and started to fit me some skates....White Skates....I cried.....Girl's Skates....I will never forget this forever..
I've told this to my kids when they had ice skates....They couldn't believe Grandma did that...My Mom was always the best.
I'm crying again.… God Rest her soul....Love my Mom for ever and ever......
 
Aside from playing many outside games with my friends like Jail Break, we also got wet under the fire hydrant and played hide and seek and jumped rope. When I was inside I loved board games but most of the time I played with dolls. My favorite was my first walking doll Sassy Susie. I got her when I was about 5yrs old and I still have her. We are now relics !
0ecea585042da20c78ef9b051ef47069--antique-dolls-vintage-dolls.jpg
 
I liked anything that made a loud noise or exploded. I liked caps - especially the ones that went into those little rocket ship shaped bombs that were thrown up & set off the cap when they landed.
I'd put 10 caps in it for a bigger explosion & add weight to the front so they would all go off. Once, I put 15 caps in it & when it hit the ground, the whole thing blew back up about 50 ft. Lucky no one got hurt.
I'd also use a hammer on the caps. They'd never sell caps now......way too dangerous. I never knew there was Black Powder in them.

I also remember a toy gun that held a whole roll of caps & advanced to the next cap with each shot. I rigged it to fire 3-4 caps at the same time & the barrel started to melt.

Good thing my real ones are made better than that.....
 
What was your favorite childhood toy, game or activity.

Mine were:
Toy:
Cap guns
Caps, when I could get 'em
My favorite toys were at my folk's friend's house
In a huge drawer at the end of a hall
Their only child was pretty spoiled
I didn't care
He had toys
Many many toys
It was like his own personal Wards toy dept at Christmas time


Game:
Monopoly
Only, I was never let to play it.
Just watch the adults play, at the card table.
Man, that looked fun.

Activities:
Cowboys and Indians
Pushing an ol' tire with a stick
Running thru the woods
Fishing the tiny stream by our place (willow limb and line)

Good times
 
A Koala bear that an Uncle by marriage bought me when he was in the Navy in 1943. This small Teddy was with me for decades until his fur wore off and a eye fell out. I cant recall how I disposed of him and I never gave him a name just called him Teddy. I can see that little bear in my mind's -eye to this day. I had a dolly called Greta and Amanda as a small child and loved them to bits. A small tin dolls pram in about 1945'6 and a three wheel blue tricycle and a Triang scooter
 
I was born & raised in the country so I had a wonderful childhood. I used to hunt & trap in the winter but of course, I would never do that now. We roamed all over the place with my 22 single shot rifle. My brother had a Mossberg Semi-automatic that we thought was pretty good. We never got a lot of toys like some kids do today but I bet I had a lot more freedom & a lot more fun than most kids do today with all their electronic toys. Once for Christmas I got a small toy clarinet & learned a few tunes on it. We played "cowboys & Indians" with BB guns & slingshots. Wonder that no one got hurt. You would never see this today in our up tight, nervous, scared & politically correct society. In the winter we built snow forts & made ice balls to throw at the other fort. This was a lot of fun & no one told us not to do it. I wouldn't trade my childhood for a million bucks. Feel real sorry for urban kids today who can't even go outside to play. Now, everything seems to be organized & you have to pay, pay & pay for kids to have fun. We even have some stores here that collect money "to help kids play". What rubbish! We played & it was all free. I grew up as a well adjusted adult because of my childhood. Anyone here for shooting rabbits in February at night with a spotlight when they come to feed on the haystacks. Did a lot more "fun" stuff but I better not tell. Maybe the politcally correct police will come to arrest me! LOL
 
Last edited:
I had roller skates clamp ons. Jack's was fun at seven. Later being the oldest of nine, took everyone outside to play games as one, two, three redlight, old mother witchy, kick ball my favorite.

My first and only bike, two wheeler, foot racers with the boys inside coloring books, 45s records, at 16.

We were poor so I took the kids to the highway hid them in the bushes and started hitch hiking to get a ride to Lincoln Woods to go to the beach. I was 16.
It was hot out.....no not bragging so sad isn't it.....
 
Sassycakes said:
Aside from playing many outside games with my friends like Jail Break, we also got wet under the fire hydrant and played hide and seek and jumped rope. When I was inside I loved board games but most of the time I played with dolls. My favorite was my first walking doll Sassy Susie. I got her when I was about 5yrs old and I still have her. We are now relics !
View attachment 85884
Click to expand...

Speaking about old toys we still have - I have quite a few of the Matchbox cars I add as a youngster.

My sister lovingly (?) calls them dead people toys, because no one will be interested in them after I fade away.
 
We mostly used our imaginations when we played outside.

Inside I remember playing with these.
vintage-potato-head.jpg
s-l300.jpg
1577452464165.jpeg
tg172a.jpg


In the winter we always had a big jig saw puzzle laid out on a card table and every time someone walked by they would find the right spot for a few pieces.
 
my fav toy was my dolls pram and big doll..then it come to skates -and a scooter'
loved my brothers massive box of meccano made loads of stuff, sit for hrs on end ...and loved his train set..
and games was draughts -or checkers / ludo '
 
Outdoors, kids of my time and area played "Cowboys and Indians" and "Cops and Robbers," sometimes with cap pistols and unconcerned about political correctness. Dying theatrically I think was the best part...

Indoors, I had epic battles with a legion of little green molded army guys. Then there was the rubber dinosaur collection, and I knew more than any adult about them!

image.jpeg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top