Lego Figures: No More Mr. Nice Toy - Yahoo! News I miss fiddling around with lego's, Lincoln log's and the erector set. Childhood was much simpler back in the day.... now you have various dynamic's changing and in some senses, wrecking these great toys that taught us so much in our earlier generations- a giant spaceship that crashed into your million dollar Lincoln cabin was a kick in the pants... YMMV!!
I used to have an erector set and built some pretty big items. I remember building a tower crane, ferris wheel and a motorised car. I also used to build fairly complex plastic models; Cars with detailed motors, steerable wheels, opening doors, many of the airplane models had little electric motors to spin the propellers - and I had to build the electric motors too. I had to stack sections of the armature, and then wind wire around the sections to make the thing work. Then there was something called "The visible V-8" which took me an entire summer to assemble. Seems like there's been a general dumbing down of these kind of things these days, Models are snap together, no glue required, all pre-painted. There's little challengs in most kid's toys these days. Its all about instant gratification and making things easy to the kids will "feel good". Few toys teach patience, problem solving skills and manual dexterity these days. No wonder every kid wants to be a video game designer ! Grown-up's ruin all the fun.
I never knew we were poor as I was growing up. I had parents who taught skills like plumbing, electrical, concrete, drywall and paint, because I thought everyone learned these things as they grew. We had a big garden, and kids had chores. it never occurred to me, as a child, we simply could not PAY someone else to do these things. i found the untouched erector set in a yard sale, and as i had one as a kid, I recommended it to my son. From the look of it, he did try it out. (everything has been poured back into the box, and the "built it" book has creases in it.) He is now studying to be an Architect. He builds model buildings that are used for teaching aids. (His teacher would not give them back!)
I still have the jarts, your Mit(t) is too small, and you forgot his first rifle, shogun, and treestand.
Yo You have throw in the Tonka Truck- I had on of those big yellow trucks that would survive destruction attempts pretty well.
Had the erector set... loved it. Tinker Toys and the Kenner Girder and Panel building set were fun. But of course there was the Mattel Powershop, practcally wore it out. I think my mother still has it. AT
Stretch Armstrong was a fun till you got curious and then cut him down to discover why he could stretch so much......