StoryWorth: Favorite Toys
What were your favorite toys as a child?
My favorite toys were my Fisher-Price Little People.
I have no idea why, but I decided, or was told, that their last name was "Smith" and so they became my "Smiffies." Looking at the picture now, I remember thinking that the mother was so beautiful.
When I was three or four, I decided that I wanted to be part of the Christmas gift-giving tradition, and so I carefully wrapped one of my Smiffies for each member of my family. The rest of them all found opportunities to slip their Smiffy back into my collection, but Mom kept the little orange boy on her dresser. After a while I asked if I could have it back and she explained no, it was a gift, and having given it away it didn't belong to me any more.
I spent hours playing with my Smiffies, both alone and with my friends, especially Lori. I had the house, but she had the airport, which was the coolest thing in the world. Later I would move on to Barbies and my sister's much-coveted Dawn Dolls, but I never loved them as deeply as the Smiffies.
One day I decided that I was going to walk over to Miss Norma's--she was the older lady in the church who served as our babysitter and adopted grandmother. I put my Smiffies in a bag--unfortunately, a paper one, and set off on the four block walk, a bold move of independence for me at five or six. Sadly, it was raining and as I crossed Main Street my bag broke, scattering my Smiffies across the road. The lady at the corner store saw me, frantically trying to rescue them, and came out to keep me from running into traffic in the gloomy late-afternoon darkness. When she understood my panic, she brought out a plastic bag and helped me to find as many as we could. Some were broken, others embedded with gravel. It's probably not true that I never played with them again after that, but something about that day broke my heart, made me realize that they were only pieces of wood, and the magic of the Smiffies was never quite the same again.
This entry was originally posted at https://lillibet.dreamwidth.org/1315619.html. You can comment either place! There are
comments over there now.
My favorite toys were my Fisher-Price Little People.
I have no idea why, but I decided, or was told, that their last name was "Smith" and so they became my "Smiffies." Looking at the picture now, I remember thinking that the mother was so beautiful.
When I was three or four, I decided that I wanted to be part of the Christmas gift-giving tradition, and so I carefully wrapped one of my Smiffies for each member of my family. The rest of them all found opportunities to slip their Smiffy back into my collection, but Mom kept the little orange boy on her dresser. After a while I asked if I could have it back and she explained no, it was a gift, and having given it away it didn't belong to me any more.
I spent hours playing with my Smiffies, both alone and with my friends, especially Lori. I had the house, but she had the airport, which was the coolest thing in the world. Later I would move on to Barbies and my sister's much-coveted Dawn Dolls, but I never loved them as deeply as the Smiffies.
One day I decided that I was going to walk over to Miss Norma's--she was the older lady in the church who served as our babysitter and adopted grandmother. I put my Smiffies in a bag--unfortunately, a paper one, and set off on the four block walk, a bold move of independence for me at five or six. Sadly, it was raining and as I crossed Main Street my bag broke, scattering my Smiffies across the road. The lady at the corner store saw me, frantically trying to rescue them, and came out to keep me from running into traffic in the gloomy late-afternoon darkness. When she understood my panic, she brought out a plastic bag and helped me to find as many as we could. Some were broken, others embedded with gravel. It's probably not true that I never played with them again after that, but something about that day broke my heart, made me realize that they were only pieces of wood, and the magic of the Smiffies was never quite the same again.
This entry was originally posted at https://lillibet.dreamwidth.org/1315619.html. You can comment either place! There are
comments over there now.