Nostalgia

On my way home from work last night I stopped at the all evil Walmart to stock up on tights and Sour Skittles cause we all know that one can never have enough tights and Sour Skittles! I picked up what I needed and decided that I wasn't quite ready to head home (this may have been because I was hoping if I arrived home after Adam...he may have already started dinner and therefore I would not have to a) choose what to cook and b) cook it). Anyway...I digress...as usual.

I wandered into the toy section and as I stood there looking at the heaps of toys on the shelves, I realized that for the most part...it's all plastic, throw away crap and it got me to thinking and feeling all nostalgic like.

I miss the toys of my childhood. 

So, without further ado, I present my four favourite vintage toys from the 1970s...

The Little People - First they were made of wood and then durable plastic (which actually isn’t an oxymoron). You can still buy Little People today but, you guessed it, they’re cheap plastic crap; they’re also the size of a mini-football so no kid will choke on them. While I loved the black and white dog, my favourite out of all the Little People was the angry boy. Who didn’t like that freckly kid who looked like someone just pissed in his Corn Flakes? I even chewed off his orangey-red cap in my own fit of anger. We both survived. That was in the bygone era when parents childproofed their kids instead of childproofing their homes. Back then, experience taught us important lessons, like not to lick ashtrays.

Little People Parking Garage - Even though no child uses the middle level, the garage is timeless. I spent hours putting the little gas nozzle into the little cars’ gas tanks. The pièce de résistance, however, was the elevator. It would carry the little cars up before releasing them down the slide. The entire garage was absolute fun, unless you got one of the Little People’s heads jammed between the elevator and the ground floor, but those guys were durable. It’s the Wile-E.-Coyote-Never-Actually-Dies theory of indestructibility.

Little People Village - Two items made the village legendary: the mail truck and the mail, six pieces of Flintstone-era letters, all deliverable through the door slots of different businesses. I loved the mail so much, I graduated to bigger postal dreams: using my parents’ slotted liquor boxes to sort various papers and envelopes into. Who needs an Xbox 360 when you have Fisher Price and empty liquor boxes? Oh, oh...remember using the purple Crown Royal bag to hold all your marbles?

Little People Family Camper - The camper was the 1970 kid’s Russian doll set: first the truck, then the camper, finally the boat as the crowning jewel. It was finely accessorized, with a picnic table and a toilet. I think this one might just have been my favourite!

So, to all those born after 1980, I say: When I was your age, the toys were better!

What about you...What's your favourite childhood toy?