Top Toys of All Time

When I was growing up, we lived in a Civil War era house located on Lafayette Square in the near south side of St. Louis, Missouri. The house was huge and at the time divided into four family flats. My mom lived on the first floor and my grandparents lived upstairs. Each flat had seven rooms. That meant that the original house had twenty-eight.

The house had a coal furnace and an old water heater that you had to light each time you used it. We also had a fallen tombstone in the backyard carrying the remains of one Charles Brown, died 1878. Although we never dug him up, it was a lot of fun around Halloween.

When I was just a little kid I played either in the backyard or the attic. Later, I graduated to the dirt floor basement. The attic was a good place to play because there were a lot of hiding places and it was dark. It also had a lot of old neat stuff that my grandparents had collected over years, like ancient television sets, old radios, and a box full of 78 records. My grandfather also kept all of his fishing equipment up there and I could always make something out of that.

The attic was also the place that I kept my toy box. The box contained several old metal toys, a broken toy robot that I was scared to take apart because I feared that something would spring out at me. There was a G.I. Joe and several other toy soldiers and a collection of cap pistols. I also had some Play Doh, a slinky, and some of that rubbery stuff that not only bounced, but you could also transfer comic book images with it. (Silly Putty)

But my favorite toy was "Droopy Dog." He was a little rubber toy dog that squeaked when you squeezed him. Several parts of Droopy finally fell off and my grandmother would patiently sew him back together. One time he was deemed unrepairable and they threw him away, but I rescued him from the trashcan and hid him.

According to Time.com, I had several of their 100 Top Toys of all Time. The top three include a Barbie doll, a Slinky, and, of course, Play Doh. The number 4 slot contains a Ninja Mutant Turtle doll.

Other top toys include the Radio Flyer Wagon, the Yo Yo, Mickey Mouse doll, and the View Master. Kids also had to have Legos, Paint-by-Numbers sets, Mr. Potato Heads, and Wiffle Balls and Bats.

The 1950's was the time when the toy market exploded with such classics as Matchbox Cars, PEZ Dispensers, Tonka Trucks, Frisbees, Hula Hoops, and Barbie dolls.

Today, some of the hottest toys aren't really toys at all. Now little kids are sitting in front of the TV set playing video games and the toy boxes are probably full of them. I saw a 6-year-old kid the other day with his own cell phone. I guess he was calling other kids with it.

But at least a lot of the old classic toys are still popular today. I guess I'll get out the Play Doh and find out if I can finally make that ashtray. Too bad I gave up smoking.

Source: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2049243,00.html