The 50th Anniversary of Legos: What it Means to Me

Looking back on my childhood, I am hard pressed to find memories more pleasant than that of those spent with Legos. My brothers and I could spend hours building, destroying, and building again. I imagine that is the case when any child is presented with a box full of Legos and a few square feet of carpet.

My mother also recalls our experiences with Legos. After hours of the ear splitting crunching noise that came from searching through a box of these little plastic blocks, she thought she had at last found relief. But, unfortunately for her, we would get out the "Lego sweeper," as we liked to call it. The Lego was a plastic box the size of a shoe box with a flimsy plastic mill on the front. If you run over a pile of Legos, the mill turns and picks up the debris, depositing it into the box. Great for cleanup, not so great for the sanity of our mother.

Another fond memory I can recall is making stop motion animation films with my second eldest brother. Stop motion animation is taking large amount of chronological pictures with a video camera, and then playing them all in a row. In later years, we were able to add voiceovers to our movies.

I cannot help but laugh when I think about this next one. My brothers and I always played Legos together. First, we would build the structure in which we would play. Next, we would each pick a little yellow Lego man to be our characters. The resulting sessions were no doubt hilarious to overhear. I remember pirate stories, westerns, and many others. For some reason, though, they would always tell me that it was not realistic when my Lego character could "jump" three feet in the air...but then they would pick their Lego people up and do it themselves.

Another great thing about Legos is the sets. I had a samuri castle, complete with torches, trap doors, and appropriate architecture elements. We also had a large pirate ship set, which may have also included pieces for a tropical island as well. By far the most involved of these sets was the aquatic set. This included submarines, sharks, sea exploration suits, and water stations.

I think Legos helped develop of lot of creativity in our minds. Reading the complex diagrams to construct the sets also helped to cultivate our ability to, well, read diagrams.

I can safely say that on this, the 50^th anniversary of Legos, that Legos were by far the favorite toy of my childhood.