Unplugged....

Greetings all! It's a beautiful, late summer morning her in the Big O-H! This is a past Sunday Scribbling challenge called "Toys."




Remember this thing? Think way, way back when you could actually own a toy that did not require any type of battery. In fact, you almost preferred they didn't require batteries because in my day, parents weren't privy to keeping their children stocked w/batteries like we do today for our kids. On Christmas morning, you better damn sure hoped that your parents gave thought to the toy "Santa" brought for you included batteries. Otherwise, that toy was pretty much rendered useless until one of the parents 'got around' to getting some.

Child + Christmas morning + waiting on parents to "get around to batteries" = disappointment in its purest form.

In today's world, we keep 'family-sized' packs of batteries on hand for all things electronic for our children. At one point, the son had a remote control car, a remote control truck, a remote control dinosaur, a racing track, a DiscMan, games (Operation, etc.), DVD player remote... I should've owned stock in Energizer.

But this treasure from the past provided hours upon hours of awesome fun w/nothing more required than to move your index finger & put your eyeballs up to the view-see-er-thing. Inside, you were transformed to your own silent movie theater with subtitles! You actually felt like you were 'there'. I remember my grandmother had reels of Niagra Falls that we would sit & share. I remember being mesmerized - I felt like I was right there @ the Falls.

Today's children (& kids way before now) wouldn't be caught DEAD w/this "nerdy, totally weird, what-am-I-sposed-to-do-with-this; what does 'it do'?" type of thing. They couldn't relate to being unplugged. Just another reason why I'm SO glad I didn't grow up in this age that demand to be constantly, freshly 'entertained.' The thought of my parents worrying about me being bored makes me roll on the floor w/laughter.

I snatched this ViewMaster outta the pile when the son had a mental growth spurt & we donated all things "toys." Good move, huh? Something tells me I knew one day I would have a story to tell.

Long live the 'unplugged' toys!!! :-)