Some toys are timeless. Sticks, balls,
dolls, toy vehicles, all the standards.
But there are some that stand out as
“how did anyone think of that?” that are now so necessary and
obvious, you can't believe the world existed without them.
The
Slinky. Alone or in pairs, it makes a slinkity sound. Loved,
parodied and failing to go down stairs without repeated pushes for
decades, now.
Etch-a-Sketch.
One of the important ones. How many pieces of technology give such
a perfect combination of play, technique, craft and creativity?
Well, Spirograph
for one. Limited in entirely different ways than the Etch-a-Sketch,
it nonetheless fueled that idea that the user can make beautiful
things, and that beauty does not require talent, skill or fanciness,
only the desire to bring it forth.
And, finally, Legos.
The big daddy of the imagination. Legos can become anything.
People have built Lego versions of nearly everything that actually
exists, and a number of things that don't. Part art, part
engineering, part ow-goddamit-don't-leave-these-things-on-the-floor,
Legos still manage to be one of the most fun things in the world to
play with.
They've even been used to make movies
and video games.
So let's hear it for toys, and all the
wonderful things they mean. Some have been supplanted, but others
will always be with us because they are too damn fun not to have
around.
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