Happy Childhood Redux

[rikibeth]

So , wyomingknott's comment about being restricted to girls' toys when she was a kid got me thinking.

I had plenty of girls' toys, Barbies and baby dolls and an elaborate dollhouse and all that sort of thing. Plus a gorgeous box full of vintage 50s costume jewelry that had belonged to a great-aunt, and that I REALLY wish I'd kept into adulthood instead of passing along to a younger cousin.

But I also had Matchbox cars and Legos and riding toys and a microscope and my very own baseball glove.

And then there were toys that blurred the line, like Derry Daring.

Do any of you remember Derry Daring? She was perhaps a little smaller than a Barbie doll. And she had red hair, and wore a fuschia jumpsuit, and rode a motorcycle.

Her helmet had a panther on it.

She was sort of a girl Evel Knievel, and I loved her.

This site says I can buy one, loose rather than in the box, for $65.00.

God help me, I'm tempted.

Comments

[ellensmithee.livejournal.com]

I remember the doll, but not what it was called. I might have had either her or Evel.

[innerfeline.livejournal.com]

Well, I say it's not the toys themselves, it's how you play with them. My main toys were a set of vintage Barbies that my mother passed down to me, which included one old Ken and a GI Joe. I usually had one of them contract some creepy alien disease, and one of the other dolls had to perform "surgery" with straight pins and a stapler. Sometimes GI Joe went all psycho, then the Barbies would form a posse to hunt him down and we'd have a hangin'...

*cough* Uh, anyway, the point is, kids are great at making the best of what they have.

My nephew, for instance...his dad pretty much ONLY gets him cars, trucks, and tractors to play with, but sometimes he sort of plays house with them. (You know, "Daddy" Big Rig, "Mommy" '57 Chevy, and "Baby" Honda.)