Childhood toys...

Probably my My Little Ponies and Polly Pockets, and my Cabbage Patch Crimp N Curl Pony.

The Polly Pockets probably got donated (with my knowledge) sometime in my early or mid teens, though I don't remember when. The Cabbage Patch Pony probably got donated around the same time. I loved the Polly Pockets because they were compact little dollhouses, and I loved (and still love) dollhouses and miniatures. The CB pony was adorable and I could style her hair. I got her for Christmas one year after having begged for her.

I remember seeing some of the My Little Ponies when I was in college, and I thought I had kept a few of my favorites, but have not been able to find them. So I guess I donated them at some point, too. I don't know what was special about them, other than every little girl my age loved them, and they were cute and fancy. My brother and I used to gather my ponies along with our toy dinosaurs and cars, and played with them together as if they all inhabited the same world.

On a weirder note, I had a few dolls that sort of...folded up to look like cupcakes. But they had a very distinct, sweet scent to them, and to this day I can still smell them.

I've heard that before. Pretty wild how that works, and I wonder if it evolved through giving our ancestors a better shot of remembering the smell of safe food vs. rotten food, or something of that nature.

I'm glad I have a sweet toy smell to remember instead

Now here's a thing.

Some toys foster what I'd refer to as open play, others are closer to closed play.

The toys I truly cherished were all open play.

Let me explain.

Consider something like an Etch a Sketch



Do they still make these? They must do.. and OK I'm showing my age now.

It's one of those toys that seems cool when you consider it as a kid (or at least it did back in the days before tablets and other digital devices) you could draw stuff on it, erase it, draw something else.

But eventually it would be put into the closet, it's potential exhausted; occasionally picked up when bored for five minutes, but it was never something that would consume hours of your time.

But contrast that with something like an action figure, a toy car, a doll, or even a plushie. All these offer the potential for open play, you set your own boundaries, limited only by your own imagination - as you (or at least I did) create your own scenarios and build your toys around them.

So (and this is gonna sound very odd) the one toy I really remember with great fondness was called an Action Man Special Operations Kit.



It was cheap, it was basic. It was a sack filled with little plastic gizmos like a primus stove, binoculars, a knife, a radio, water canteen etc.

And I was absolutely smitten with it, because it allowed Action Man to become a tough commando unit operating behind enemy lines, with only his wits, training and equipment to rely upon. And with this and other various accessories I owned I'd create elaborate scenarios in my head and play them out - usually involving Action Man and an assortment of other action figures fighting impossible odds against some terrible threat that threatened to destroy the world unless stopped. There were heroic sacrifices, deeds of daring and renown.

And people wonder why, in the current day, I love games with a more sandboxy feel to them

Action Man was the bees knees. I was so totally impressed by my older cousins set. I never had one myself, but GI Joe was a staple for my brother and I. Must've been close to forty different characters between us, plus a handful of vehicles and a small base.

A kid I went to school with had rich parents and he had the big helicopter and a few other very large vehicles.

I used to love these too! I think I only ever had one though.


I remember these too!


I swear I have the LL294 brick and that planet with the red ring around it in my lego collection...that now belongs to my kids.

I think though, the most favourite toy I had when I was younger was our Sega Mega Drive II. Even though my brother had a habit of raaaaaging at Golden Axe and throwing the controller and breaking it.
And then we had Gameboy Colours (mine was lime green) but sadly, I think my parents threw it out many year ago. Along with the Atari .

I loved Legos but my brother got always the cool sets whereas I got the "girls" stuff which I hated. All I wanted was the pirate legos.

I spent all my money on horse figurines, the ones with soft fuzzy lining on them, something like this m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71M6KiUnSSL.jpg
They were my treasure and I still have them somewhere.