What were some of your favorite toys during your childhood?

Slinky !

I had a stuffed Snoopy dog that I loved until it died.

I had a hyper-realistic tiger back when I was at kindergarten. It was the first stuffed animal I had got so it was like the world to me. My best memory with it is when a passerby passed my house and saw me cuddling with the tiger. He asked me if it was a cat. I told him it was a tiger, and the expression on his face was priceless!

The tiger was gone a few months ago. We simply didn’t have enough space for it.

As a little kid it was my stuffed animals whom I very uncreatively named. My teddy bear was Teddy. Hippopotamus named Hippy. Brown rabbit named (you guessed it) Brownie. I imagined my bed was an apartment building and all the stuffed animals lived there.

Later, around age 7, it was my Star Wars action figures and Millennium Falcon play-set.

By age 10, it was my bicycle. I rode everywhere.

I had some stuffed animals that I loved. I had the Barbie camper that I remember having a lot of fun with. When I was a toddler, there was a red metal fire engine that I remember riding on. It disappeared and then I saw a photo that it was sent to the cousins in Maine. I remember being very upset that my fire engine was sent away without anyone asking me.

A stick.
I used to draw with them on the dirt road in front of our cottage. I could make huge drawings until a car came by and erased them.
I also liked Barbie dolls.

As a small child, I loved a Jack-In-The-Box. I loved how dependable it was, and how distressed I was the first time it failed to jump out on cue.

My number one was my favorite stuffed cat. She is all worn out and raggedy and in a box in the garage now, but there are more pictures of me with that cat than any other toy.

I also loved playing with K’nex (more so than Legos). There was a time when my room was filled with those things.

Slinky.
Automatic pea shooter.
Thompson machine gun cap gun.
A plastic revolver that shot plastic bullets.
Daisy BB gun.
Crossman BB gun.

I had a full gun slinger suit complete with hat, waistcoat, sheriff star, gun belt, holster & yes…chaps :D
Along with the 2 silver pistols, I had a silver rifle with a white butt, I must have looked like a hybrid lone ranger/brokeback mountain type of thing.

Call me weird, but I had a toddler push toy I loved beyond the learning to walk age. They call it a popcorn toy, because a clicker tossed little wooden balls around inside a plastic dome, but to me it was a gumball toy. I never had gum when I was little, and we lived on a farm, so I almost never saw those machines with the pretty colored gumballs in them. I was obsessed. My fascination finally destroyed the toy. I got into daddy’s tools and got it broke open. Gawd, I was so broken hearted when they turned out to be painted wood. There was no fixing it. That experience was far worse than when I figured our there was no Santa.

I didn’t bond to toys much as other kids. Mostly I was about activity; climbing trees, working out with the rings on my swingset, and loving nature, catching tadpoles and little baby crawdads. I wanted a lite brite very much, and I loved that until the super hot bulb melted the metal casing.
My chickens were a favorite toy. I loved holding them, taking care of them, climbing the barn rafters to catch them.
I pictured myself climbing trees until I’m eighty. That’s off the table. I guess I’m glad I can still remember how it felt. My muscles strong, and working together to lift me to the next branch. The feeling of the bark gripped in my hands. The strength of the tree, reassuring me it would hold me as long as I wanted. Tree climbing is a relationship, a forever trust. No toy can match that.