Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Oh, if we all had the toys we played with when we were kids, View Master is just one of those. I remember my set of Roy Rogers cap pistols, and a crystal radio, where to find a station you had to map a crystal. 

Yes Sir, that is the one. Based on the gun that won the west the colt 45 revolver. In the 50s it was still ok to play with real looking weapons. No orange tips and plastic and strangly enough police did not shoot every kid that had one or a double. We played war, cowboys and Indians without adult supervision, or interference and most survived the events. On occasion you heard of some kid who shot his friend or family member, and then you got a lecture on gun safety. 

I remember my father, (the old gunny) when I got my RR pistols reminding me to never point them at any one. Perhaps that is why our generation can not understand the "ban the gun" nuts. Our parents understood what the weapons were and were for and taught us safety first. I've not reasearched the numbers but my gut tells me that the out of control shooters in schools and malls grew ups with parents who were not trained in the use of weapons. Therefore, their children were not trained and the only experience they had with firearms was video games.

In our neighborhood we did not go for the shaved ice but waited for the Good Humor Man. It wasn't a case of not liking shaved ice but a practical one. Until I was 12 we lived in San Bernadino, the old gunny finished his time in the Corps at 29 palms, and summers were scorchingly hot. A shaved or ground ice would last about 2 minutes in the 100-degree summer heat. Ice cream lasted much longer. And the ice cream truck was more special. In those days the Good Humor Man was a frozen delight wizard in a spotless white uniform, hat and a truck that was washed daily.  The truck was packed with dry ice and conditioned and when he opened the side door condensation fog rolled out. The kids would all oh and awe. Now days its some kid in faded pants, T-shirt, both dirty, and driving so fast that it's almost impossible to go in the house get money and be back on the street before he has gone by. Just as well the ice cream is not that special anymore. 


 

Ours was a large family so we had every toy you show, except that particular pistol. We had plenty of others pistols though, whether cap pistols or one like this Mattel item below which shot plastic bullets.

We generally got one "big" present for Christmas. For example, the Mattel gun would be considered a big present. I can recall getting some such pistol for Christmas and playing with it all day, making ricochet sounds. For example, I shot at the moon that night and waited some seconds for the bullet to reach the lunar surface. I would then would make the sound. Kids have a lot of imagination and don't need a lot to have fun. They are naturally inventive. 




We played Cowboys and Indians and Cowboys vs. Cowboys. I think it was only after Combat got popular that we went around shooting Nazis. Our guns got better/more lethal too. 

One of my best memories is going to the Orange Show in San Bernardino. This was in the 50s and oranges were a staple crop in the inland empire. We lived for a time in highlands CA. which was the center of orange farmers. It was possible to walk for miles through orange groves, and some grapefruit without seeing another person. We were never hungry just pick a fruit fresh off the tree. We regularly took our pellet guns with us and would bullseye lizards when we saw one. 

The Orange show was a cross between fair, carnival, and trade show. The exibition halls would display the benifits of fresh oranges and juice, brought to you by your friends at Sunkist. One of the most facasating displays was the ancient tractors. There were working tractors from the early 1910s and 20s. These old machines would caugh and sputter, catch on and run smoothly. And of course the carny. In those days there still were actual real carnival people running the shows and rides. My dad had worked a carnival before joining the Marines and knew the language. If there was a game I liked he would lean over to the guy running it an whisper something in carny and wonder of wonder, I would win a prize. I remember one carny telling my dad, "I did'nt know you were with it" have a good time. 

Thge oranges have gone from most of San Bernardino and so I guess the orange show has changed with the times. Houses now stand where we walked in the groves. Growth is part of the nature of things. The last time I walked through an orange grove was Oct of 73 in Israel. The Jezreal valley and the oranges were in bloom. the sweet smell of the blossoms laid their hands on all who ventured there. It was, for a moment, just like being 10 again and drifting through the orange groves of my youth.  

Just like the Mason. No outsider is ever going to learn the secret handshake.



I feel an intake of vitamin C just from reading your orange grove stories. In Washington (Eastern Washington) you could certainly walk for miles in apple orchards without seeing another thing. I've never done so. But I guess they have some big acreage over there east of the mountains. But apples don't have quite the exotic vibe as oranges.



I'm trying to figure out if that sounds more like Three Dog Night or Chicago. You spelled "yute" wrong, by the way.

There once was a traveler from Highland
Whose orchards stretched miles on dry land
And wherever he strove
Was another orange grove
In this land is yours and my land

I ran across this game while looking though 60s/70s toys:



It was kind of a fun game. Simple. You wonder what happens to these things. I certainly never remember becoming dissatisfied with it and in need of getting rid of it.

I think the chain of events is something like this: Played with for a time > moved to back shelf or drawer > moved to attic > sold in garage sale. I think a lot of childhood memories took this path, although probably more than a few were simply thrown out because they weres broken.

We came from a pretty decent middle class family. Maybe it was technically a little lower middle class. But such distinctions are meaningless in a world where rich kids are either shooting up schools or getting strung up on drugs.

All we knew was what we considered the normality of living in a good neighborhood. Hell has a special place for the Democrats who trade safe neighborhoods for their constituents for sheer political power.

We were generally happy and safe and considered this normal and had no appreciation for the vast goodness of America that made this possible.

We had abundance at Christmas. Lots of good food. Lots of holiday decorations. And lots of presents, but not excessively so. Again, I didn't come from a financially rich family. But it seemed rich at the time.

And for every boy, and probably every girl too, when Christmas came, we dreamed of what we wanted for Christmas. We scanned the propaganda (aka "advertisements") on television and were amazed by all the wonders and discovered all kinds of things that we couldn't live without. If only we dropped hints and begged enough.

And a kid's life is full of dreamy visions of The Perfect Toy that would make one eternally happy...but that would turn to be something other than toy nirvana.

One of those for me was Kenner's Spirograph. Just look a the images on that box. How cool is that?



And, yes, you could, with some patience, create some nice designs. But it was extremely difficult (at least for me) to create those more intricate designs that you see on the box top because is was common for the pen and/or gears to slip. In an instant you'd ruin the design.

The idea of it is splendid. But executing the dream was always a lesson in frustration. Luckily there's an online one you can use if you have the desire to create spiral masterpieces.

And that's the life of a kid. We are dumb, spoiled, and cute in our own way. We never really appreciated what we had...but we did enjoy what we had a great deal. Our Toy Utopia perhaps was never realized. But a few of them came close. One of those was...



I got this one year for Christmas and had years of fun. On a subsequent Christmas (or birthday) I got the "Creepy Crawlers" add-on pack that came with more metal molds and goop. Later I also got the Mini Dragons add-on and then the Creeple Peeple one. I played with all that off and on for years. And I still have it although I don't know if you can come by the goop anymore.



The following is not a photo of the Mini Dragons that I made. But I did a fair imitation of them and still have a few of them. I may take a photo of them when I get a chance.

Before the age of 3D printers we had:



Actually, my older brother had it. It may have been one of the most dangerous toys of all time, according to this Forbes writer:



If you say so. The Vac-U-Form was just a great toy because you could make cool stuff with it.

Still, such toys certainly could serve a dual purpose. You could indeed begin to learn useful crafts and techniques which such things. But, not if you're a girl…



I could never write such pablum with a straight face. This is a great example of the emasculated male. It's an example of the Commissars getting you to say (with or without a rat cage tied to your face) that "two plus two equals five." I find it kind of chilling that someone could be so mindlessly programmed. A girl become a homemaker? Egad. The horrors.

The Vac-U-Form is another item that my younger brother rescued from the attic. I think it's sitting around here somewhere but I don't know if you can still by the plastic molding material anymore. But he had hours of fun with that, as did I.