Toys have an emotional impact, no matter what people say.  

Regardless of how many you had growing up, there is at least one special toy someone can recall.  

I recently joined a group on Facebook, just for fun, called “toys from my youth” or something like that. Facebook is such a load of ads and superfluous crap these days that I’ve finally given up on it being like it used to be. I mean, gone are the days when you could just check in with your friends. 

Now, it’s all about AI information and other stuff.

But as usual, I digress.

So it’s fun to look at some toys we used to have as kids, and it’s also fun to look at what toys were like before we were around.  I’ve heard plenty of stories about kids getting one gift for Christmas, or just one gift and a stocking full of candy and treats. They thought they were really doing well, and wouldn’t it be great if we still had that mentality? 

By the time I was growing up in the 1970s, and a good couple of decades or so before that, kids were getting much more than one toy and the contents of a stocking.

There are plenty of entries on the Facebook page where grown-up kids will post photos of frosty looking living rooms from the 1960s, or bright orange and brown family rooms of the 70s.  The photos alone could chronicle the evolution of the console television set.  

And pajama styles.  And ugly carpeting.

I am especially fond of the elaborate matchbox car set-ups that some guys post.  My cousins used to have a little building that you could “rev up” by turning a crank. The little spongy things inside the little building turned after being cranked, and there was a cool “varoooom” sound.  The matchbox car could be fed into the opening and the car would be propelled out, sending it down the connected orange car track with mind-numbing speed.  

It was a thing of beauty. I could have lived my whole childhood with just matchbox cars as a toy.  They were my favorites. I had the orange tracks but I never did get the crank-up-propulsion building.

Our other “go-to” toys, besides building blocks, were Fisher Price toys. We had the barn, the gas station, the schoolhouse, a houseboat and many other pieces. We certainly had hours of fun with them, and I even had some of the “little people” when they were still made of wood.

I mean sheesh, I sound like the Flintstones era.

After I perused my toy page one day, I saw another page devoted to Fisher Price toys. Then I found two more.  

I’m now the member of three Facebook pages devoted to those of us who played with Fisher Price toys. It’s an enormous time waster to sit and scan the pages, but it is something I enjoy and is sometimes a welcome brain shifter.  I try not to spend too much time doing it, because I am a Facebook hater.  

And a hypocrite.

I often send my brother pictures of some of the toys. There was a picture I saw of a Fisher Price style Holiday Inn, which we had never seen as kids. My brother sent back a text asking if the toy was mine.  I don’t know if he was jealous or if he wanted to come over and play.  

Sadly, I told him, it was just a photo. Our enthusiasm and excitement was mutual, I’m sure.

I think the biggest deal we’ve found out is that these Fisher Price items are going for big bucks. I mean, shoot, if we were willing to part with any of our beloved toys (which are still at Mom’s house), we could make a nice chunk of change. 

 I doubt we’d part with them. They have been enjoyed by our own children, and I’m sure they will be in good enough shape to be played with by the grandkids someday.

Also, ours are well-loved and not in the pristine shape of the items on the website. I mean, heck, some of those are still in the original packages.  

Ours still exist with a few crayon marks here and there, a few chewed-up animals from the barn  (one of the horses looks like a coyote tried to get him), and several missing pieces. There are some old stickers left over from cereal box prizes from the 70s.  

 And I  can’t remember if the dog or my brother chewed up the farm animals.  

Maybe both.