Beerless Beer And Tobaccoless Tobacco

[Flint]

What are your fave boys toys from when you were a littlun?

Mine are:

Action man

Scalextric

Wooden train set

Stretch armstrong

Buzz light year toy

Woody toy

Oh and I just remembered my thunder birds toy! Remembering that has brought back so many memories and maybe even a part of me I'd forgotten about over the years!

[Flint]

How can i forget my postman pat van aswell! One of the first toys I remember!

[JJ]

Must be something we didn't have here across the pond. Or maybe a generation thing,

I got up every morning that wasn't a school morning and put on my real leather chaps before strapping on my double Lone Ranger holsters with nickel plated six shooters and silver bullets and finished off with my cowboy hat and boots. Then I played all day with my cowboys and Indians. Some big sets made by Hartland and some small. They all had names and personalities I still remember.

But some days I spent bent over my microscope or painting pictures of horses and cowboys,

My few dolls were good for rescuing from the Indians who took them hostage.

I always wanted an erector set but for some reason never got one, Was deeply enamored of my chemistry set but only briefly, You really can blow things up with one.

Also really love my Fort Apache set and my grandfather's saw and hammer and nails along with any lumber I could find,

And my fringed leather jacket! How could I forget that? It was a real leather jacket and not a toy but with a headdress and Indian made moccasins from New Mexico I became a warrior roaming the plains on my Schwinn pony. It was a boys bike with big fenders but in my mind it always had hooves instead of tires and flew across the plains with mane and tail streaming in the wind.

Thanks Matty. I had not thought of these things in a long time. I was often a happy little boy when lost in my Western world.

[Flint]

all those toys sound cool, JJ.

That reminds me, and honestly how it didn't come to mind I have no idea since it was my most prized possession for many years...

My cowboy hat! I used to wear it with sunglasses on and go out on the street and introduce myself to this boy who used to come down our street from the next street as Tony. I thought the cowboy hat and the glasses were disguise enough..

[Guest Kallum]

TOYS

My favourites:

Building blocks

Lego

Train set

Rescue heros

My dorothy the dinosaur tail

Kal

[Guest aleon515]

Blocks and more blocks

a big metal dump truck

matchbox cars

a train on a wooden track

Cowboy stuff (gun, hat, etc.) I had a major time where I think ever photo of me had me in full cowboy regalia.

Even though this was years ago my parents were very ok with me playing with them. I did have dolls (no Barbies) which I wasn't as enthusiastic about.

--Jay Jay

[Guest ShortyT]

Random hand-me-downs from my brothers.

Legos

Dolls

Artsy stuff (painting, coloring, needlework, clay)

Trees

Random stuff found by the sea

[Guest aleon515]

Actually I just read JJ's post and it sounds a lot like my childhood. Spent a lot of time with my six shooters and had the whole cowboy regalia (chaps, jacket, hat,etc.). Also has a Davie Crocket coon skin hat. (I think JJ and I grew up in the same area.)

--Jay Jay

[Guest Opal]

Time to make a post in this thread... Hope I do not get caught.

[Flint]

Get caught doing what?

[JJ]

You are welcome to join us any time Opal.

Especially since you seem to have dusted the old place off.

Keep hoping Evan will stroll in one of these days.

Johnny

[Guest Opal]

Oh No! Busted 'Dang!' (to quote a phrase)

[Guest Opal]

And another year goes by......

I may have killed this thread and it is in the bottom of the pool.....

[JJ]

Virtual big hug Opal. I had forgotten about this thread.

Thank you

Hugs

Johnny

[Ravin]

I don't know if I ever saw this thread before. I don't remember it and I"m too lazy to go through and look for my own posts.

It does remind me of something I need to post though.

[Guest]

What, I just got here! Why's the party (thread) dying?

Here's a thought I realized just from reading the title. Guys have often told me that while I smoked, it somehow made me look ugly and that it's "not for ladies" (which is ridiculous on MANY levels). Buuuuuuut I guess now I can laugh even harder in their faces. "Dude, you're an idiot. And I'm a dude." Haha

[Flint]

It just kind of drifted as people drifted in and out of the forum.

but this is one of my faverioute threads. so feel free to revive it by keep posting. Anything is up for a topic in this thread really.

[Guest Cyd]

I always wanted an erector set but for some reason never got one, Was deeply enamored of my chemistry set but only briefly, You really can blow things up with one.

Also really love my Fort Apache set and my grandfather's saw and hammer and nails along with any lumber I could find,

I just found this thread. Johnny, I had a Fort Apache set too! My mom got it for me with green stamps. Loved that thing...wish I knew what happened to it. My sister and I also had several of the Johnny West series dolls and a couple of the horses--I would save up my allowance for months to buy them, and I always wanted the male figures. The way that stuff sells on eBay now, I wish I had more of it left than just one boy doll and one horse. I had Sheriff Garrett and the villain--they were my favorites.

I wanted an erector set, too, and never got one. Had a chemistry set briefly, too, but never did much with it once I figured out that it was designed to do only safe stuff (I wanted to blow things up!). I did enjoy Legos when I was smaller, but never got into the elaborate kits like they make now. We just had a bucket of random Lego bricks and our imaginations.

We had Barbie dolls, but mine always dressed like a lesbian. The glamorous clothes didn't interest me at all. Ha!

Still have a shoebox full of Matchbox cars....ah, memories.

[JJ]

Don't know exactly why-maybe it's the healing that the introspection and coming to terms with the past that transition has brought but I find myself letting go of some of the toys and mementos I have kept throughout my life. Now the memories are enough and I have in some way moved on as I never really did before. It feels good.

I didn't keep all my Ft Apache but do still have some of the horses and soldiers tucked away in a box somewhere. Mine was the RinTinTin edition but Rinty and Rusty as well as the Lieutenant are long gone. I bought one on ebay over 15 years ago and enjoyed looking at it before I resold it. I think sometimes it is good for us to recapture a childhood dream or moment and then move on. I know it was for me for a long time. I always wondered why I held on so fiercely to the things from what was in many ways a horrific childhood but have come to see that 6 days a week for the summers I could live free as myself. I wore boy clothes and rode a boys bike and made sure I not only coud do everything any boy could but could do it better. After grade school all that abruptly ended. Now I live as the man I am and smile at the boy I was without needing to hold on anymore.

Took a long time but that doesn't really matter because I'm here now.

Johnny

[Guest KayC1]

I grew up in a great neighborhood, it was full of kids. Although I was an only child, I had a family of 7 on one side of me and a family of 6 on the other. I actually grew up more in their households tan my own. A large part of the time we were playing team sports: wiffleball, football or kickball. If we weren't doing that, we were playing army, cowboys and Indians, secret agent (think Man from U.N.C.L.E.) or space traveler (think Lost in Space). On indoor days, I had plenty of the plastic molded army soldiers and cowboys and Indians to keep busy with. I did have a Ken doll. I and laugh when I think how upset my grandmother was when I took $5 of my Christmas money, which was a lot of money back then, to buy him a tux. Hey, I wanted to look good when I was courting Barbie and her friends.

[Ravin]

I don't have any childhood toys, except one she-ra that I tossed in my kids' toy bin, and some stuffed animals.

I had a bunch of she-ra stuff but loved playing with a friend's he-man stuff more.

I remember in 4th grade I insisted on being called "Jo" for a while and the kids at church called me "GI Jo" because I liked to play that on the playground at school.

Nonconformity led to ostracism, which I escaped from by going deeper into my own imagination.

Fortunately I had a great imagination!

[Guest Opal]

Just a gentle bump....

[Flint]

This is a fantastic thread. It's sad to see it has waned through the times. This post encapsulates masculinity in its purest form, it's sad to see it not being celebrated. Masculinity in today's culture is all to often bashed and this thread for me holds a masculine up as something to be cherished and serves as a reminder that there is something graceful about positive masculinity. There isn't a word or phrase one can use to eloquently define what masculine or feminine is, yet they're different in their varying ways and some differences are so subtle it's hard to point to how you know it's different, yet it is. You sense it, you feel it, you see it but neither can be defined.

We like to see ourselves as heroes and fighters, we are natural born fighters. To be fighter doesn't necessitate violence or bloodshed. A fighter is just a man who fights for any injustices he sees, who fights the status quo if needs be. But also he battles a war behind his own eyes, a personal battlefield where he tries to find mastery over himself and improve upon himself as a man, as a human being as a living creature on this planet.

[MaryEllen]

Come on, guys. This thread is your man cave. Do your thing in here. Surely there are things you'd like to talk about. No girls will interfere. (Except for me nagging at you from time to time. )

[Flint]

Come on, guys. This thread is your man cave. Do your thing in here. Surely there are things you'd like to talk about. No girls will interfere. (Except for me nagging at you from time to time. )

LOL