Posted on 10/19/2011 11:11:00 AM PDT by EveningStar
Caltrops! More Caltrops!
Looking at this list, I see a lot of things that teach kids how to build stuff. Kids nowadays get handheld electronic games that teach them how to be zombies.
While more dangerous, the old toys taught kids about cause and effect. The electronic games teach kids there aren't really any consequences to bad moves. You just start the game over.
Kids that used the old toys grew up to have careers making things to improve the lifestyles of people in the country. Kids that used the new games grew up to protest about the mean, old bankers.
Notice how many were made by A C Gilbert
ROTFLOL!!! Is that thing for real??
Do you know, the Damn EU Nanny State just made it ILLEGAL for kids under 14 years of age to BLOW UP BALLOONS or use those whistle things that unroll and flap around because they are “too dangerous” for a “child” to play with.
I remember having little exploding balls the size of BBs that were probably smaller versions of what you played with. Great fun!
I did not have the dexterity for knots back then, but some kids did. They would tie a little "Lady Finger" firecracker to a big Colorado grasshopper, light fuse, and instant cruise missile. Another form of pest control, perhaps.
My parents, Strictly Republican in MOST things, would not buy me fireworks. You know what happened? I hung around the Swim Club and picked up the Black Cats that DIDN’t go off, tore the casings until they had a “fuze” and played with THEM. Thank goodness their protecting me taught me to endanger myself in new and interesting ways!
I didn’t know cracked writers were such total wusses.
I was telling someone the other day about the atomic energy kits of days gone past and they pretty much called me a liar.
I still remember the smell of the bubbling, hot plastic.
We use to take model boats and fill them/douse them with gas and then set them afloat on the nearby creek. The game was to see who could flick the match that would set it on fire.
Were you covered in sushi?
...Yer right. Now after the Reno crash, air shows here are getting a bad rap...
Check out the hysterical Blago “Cabbage Patch” doll in #27. I can’t stop laughing... LOL!
Great post. Wisdom lacking in the modern era.
...Your being reported to EPA watch!!! /sarc
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Did you know the fire-engine red ones had triple the explosive power of the other colors?
Well that was the kid mythology in our neighborhood anyway, and we pretty much had ourselves convinced it was true.
We were big stuff, until a young adult down the street showed up with some REAL M-80s (”1/8 of a stick of dynamite was the kid legend on that one”), and REAL cherry bombs.
Don’t see anything wrong with those toys. In the mid 60’s a friend and I strived hard to make black powder, and if I remember correctly the formula was 75% KN03, 15% powdered carbon, and 10% sulfur. It didn’t work as well as we had hoped, so I figured maybe we needed to add water and cook it on the stove to get it mixed up properly. Then of course we needed to get the water out, but that was no problem either - just cook it in the oven. It still didn’t work too well after that, and we never got a good result from multiple attempts. But experiments like that helped foster my curiosity, and I am sure that was the path intended for me to become a university professor with a reasonable amount of research to my credit.
Stayathomemom’s husgand.
“Christmas Story”... one of my all-time favorite movies! We watch it once a year at Christmas (usually during that Christmas Eve/Day TBS marathon). I never get sick of it...
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