Cars, Bikes and Barbie

One of the biggest toys that John got was a huge yellow metal car that he could drive.  I think we were supposed to share it but John pretty much monopolized it so my memory is that it was “his”.  Peter got a bouncing rocking horse when he was little, it was a used one and I think maybe Dad bought it from a colleague.

Dad had a philosophy that children ought to have certain toys.  We all had to have ice skates (and that’s a story for another time) and we had to have bikes.  I was the first to get one for my 10^th birthday.  It was a three speed, used, but terrific.  I had to learn to ride a bike before I was allowed to get one but that was remedied faster than Dad realized because my best friend had a huge bike which she let me use to learn on.  Oh but that bike liberated me even more than before.  I went far and wide on that bike (but never on Appleby Line, that was a no-no I did not dare break).  But I found a lot of pathways in the woods and fields to take me outside the neighbourhood.  Yep, I was bad.

Girls had dolls, boys had rifles, six-shooters and cars.  My brothers had a lot of “dinky toys” and later the “hot rods” (cars).  When I was 9 or 10 I discovered Barbie (and that was the end of baby dolls for me).  I LOVED my Barbie (which was actually a Mitzi doll as it was one dollar cheaper but actually prettier than the Barbie).  A few years later the boys got G.I. Joes so I used them as Mitzi’s boyfriend instead of Ken (I never did get a Ken doll).

Well, I could go on and on about all the toys we had but suffice to say – my parents did not have a lot of money but we always got great toys for Christmas and birthdays.  We were taught how to care for our toys and knew that we had to hide them from certain friends who came a’visiting!  Some kids could be very destructive!