Toys and Games

I was looking at the Care Bears in Target one day last year and thinking that they don't look as well made as the ones that I had when I was a kid. I think that's true about alot of products. My brother's Matchbox and Tonka trucks were heavier and sturdier back then. I used to like playing with them too. It's a shame that they don't make things like they used to.

I do still have some of my childhood toys- the Viewmaster, my Barbies, Wonder Woman, dolls like one that I named Teresa after a family friend and a few stuffed animals. I really regret getting rid of alot of those. I always prefered playing with the animals. I was going through a purging of my possesions phase in the late 80s. I have Poochie bear, Cinnamon Koala and Seamore Otter but not their friends Peter and Cottontail Bunny. I even wrote a few short stories about them when I was 12 years old. I looked at these a few years ago- pretty bad stuff.

Mom would get my brother and I a game every Christmas. We still have many of them. Battleship, Connect Four, Hangman and Trivial Pursuit. We don't have Trouble and Double Trouble anymore. We played with a few of my mother's games too- Monopoly, Clue, Parcheesi and Scrabble. She had to buy us a new Clue in the early 90's because we lent her's to our younger cousins and they never gave it back before they moved. I was jealous of cousin Mary because she had Don't Spill the Beans. We also had Toss Across and Pokeno. I should look in the game tote to see what else we still have.

We were also jealous of Mary because she had alot of Star Wars action figures and the Darth Vader's head case to store them in. Mark only had a few of them, 3 Battlestar Galactica and 3 or 4 Star Trek(the movie) figures. He did have GI Joe, The Lone Ranger, Tonto and The Six Million Dollar Man. He had these heavy cowboy type figures that a friend of the family gave him. One day he was swinging one around and it hit me in the face knocking out one of my baby teeth.

We liked our Play-doh, Etch-a-Sketch, box of 64 Crayola crayons, Silly Putty and blowing bubbles. Couln't help being jealous of Jenny who had Lite Brite. A classmate gave me the Magic 8 Ball as a birthday gift. Mary had that game Simon- I wasn't that good at it. We had the Fisher Price airport, house and barn. I had The Family Tree House. I used to put the little people on my Dad's train that was under the Christmas tree. We loved that train- it made noises and steam came out of it too. They would visit the baby Jesus at our manger scene also.

We were so excited when our parents got us the Atari system in 1982. Our favourite games were the Acti-Vision ones- Barnstorming, Pitfall, Dolphin, Freeway and Stampede. Mark liked Asteriods. I liked Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man. Donkey Kong was cool too. Mary had Atlantis and Mark enjoyed playing that when we visited her. I wasn't ever that good at video games. Mark had the hand held Space Invaders game. He had a football one too- I think it was ColecoVision or something like that. I'm pretty sure we had the Frogger cartidge too.