Did you have a Booger Red? Toys of the ME Generation!

What were your favorite childhood toys?
As a child of the 60’s and 70’s, I remember searching out the Sears or JC Penney’s catalogues for my holiday “wish lists”. Before the days of Toys R Us, these catalogues seemed to have anything a 6 year old could desire! In between the Saturday morning cartoons, we were introduced to the newest crazes in toys and games. Thanks to the television, my generation was the first to have advertisers fighting en masse for our parent’s hard- earned cash in order to satisfy the imaginations, creativity and excessive desires of the deep-pocketed ME-generation.
The first toy that I recall was a ragdoll of sorts, with the unfortunate name of “Booger Red”. Yes, “Booger”, which is most commonly known as an alternately crispy or gooey- textured substance residing in the cavernous depths of one’s nostrils, but more often in my family, it referred to a spook… neither of which usage was an appropriate name for a doll. The “Red” came from her bright red hair. Poor Booger Red suffered frequent and daily abuse from my chubby little fingers. Like Elvis or Kilroy, there was (secretly) more than one “Booger Red.” At bedtime and naptime, I twirled the crimson strands of Booger Red’s hair until I could fall asleep. It took the balding of multiple dolls for me to outgrow this habit!
In the social group of 1960’s 8-12 year old girls, your social status was directly proportionate to the number of Barbies, Barbie- pals, and accessories that you owned. There was bisexual boyfriend Ken, (forerunner of the male model), miniature cousin Skipper, and the less attractive red-headed Midge. Like Cybil, multiple- personality Barbies could be simultaneously dressed for a tennis match, the beach, an evening out or nursing. There were also the requisite accessories including tiny plastic handbags and shoes in transparent watercolors, all the size of a thimble, so tiny that you could hardly get them on and off. Ultimately, I owned one of each shoe, since they were always being lost. Much to my dismay, there was never an Amputee Barbie to benefit from my ownership of single shoes, not even after the Vietnam War. You also had to own a decent and respectable carrying case for carrying Barbie on play dates with friends. I am sure the future sorority princesses among us owned the Corvette and the Barbie Dream House … I suppose they still do!
The best toys, not only occupied our time- they transformed us into other people, and took us to other times and places. Armed with our favorite toys or dress up clothes, we could go anywhere our imaginations would carry us. My favorite Christmas, I received a cowboy outfit, real cowboy boots, and a blonde wig. I’m not sure if I was trying to be a country music singer, rodeo star or Annie Oakley… probably all three! There is still a picture of me posing by the shiny aluminum Christmas tree with blue balls and a rotating color wheel. I look just like a miniature Dolly Parton, BEFORE the boob job.
Actually, some of my favorite toys were not really toys at all. Although I inherited a sweet little playhouse from my big sister, I often preferred to play at “Moss Hill”. This was nothing more than an area of the woods, near the house on the north side of a gulley, where moss grew abundantly under a canopy of pines and tall deciduous trees. To an aspiring interior decorator, the moss was perfect carpeting for a home, and the abundance of trees and limbs formed architecture that was as limitless as my imagination.
The house on Goat Pasture Road was located near the Yadkin River, and the woods and trails around there occupied my time in many ways. Along the river basin, I would dig up the cool red clay and form it into pots and dishes, placing it up in the safety of the tree branches to dry into a fragile, brittle vessels. Depending on the summer drought, it would be days or weeks until they would be reduced to mud. I spent hours exploring those trails, retracing the steps of Daniel Boone, who was rumored to have hid from the Indians in a small, local outcropping called Boone’s Cave .
The streams and creeks that fed the river could be dammed up as crude, shallow swimming holes. You could catch fish or look for crayfish, “craw fish”, as we called it then… In the fall, hundreds of yellow leaves would sail down that creek like sailboats, and were as beautiful as any regatta I have seen since!
Music was another form of entertainment, a toy of sorts. My family owned an old upright piano, a gift from my Grandmother Swicegood , to the only grandchild who could play it, ME! Certain I was a prodigy, my mother made me suffer through YEARS of piano lessons. I loved the piano, but detested the lessons and the boring scales and silly little songs. I was a prodigy alright… I cheated my way through 3 years of lessons and recitals, and never learned to read a single note. To this day, I still can play anything, all with the style and technical finesse of an 8 year old!
I loved crafts, and spent hours on the sewing machine, or making potholders on a plastic loom using strips made of colored tube socks. I could crochet aphgans and baby clothes, but never learned to knit. I developed an affinity for candle making til my father discovered the excess wax was being deposited into the basement sink. He was not happy to have to dig up the sink drain, even for the perfection of a multicolored 6” taper. You could also drip the wax down the side of a wine bottle, giving me my first taste of bohemia. Much to my disappointment, I never owned a Thingmaker or Incredible Edibles, although my boyfriend in 3rd grade did! By accepting a plastic red centipede of sorts, on Valentine’s Day, we were officially GOING TOGETHER!
The most impressive toy of my childhood was the Easy Bake Oven. This was a miniature oven, about the size of a small microwave that looked just like a REAL oven. It came with a set miniature round cake pans, and a variety of cake mixes. Without mother’s help, and powered only by a light bulb, it baked real cakes… that (Wait, wait, this was the BEST part) you could actually EAT! Unfortunately, the initial set came with a limited number of cake mixes, which did not last a Girl’s Size 14 Chubby for very long. I could never convince my mother to let me bake in the Easy Bake using her homemade recipes. Mother suffered from worms as a child, and was certain that 100 watts of pure baking power would not bake at a high- enough temperature to kill any parasites.
In our generation, man first landed on the moon. Inspired by this giant leap for mankind, toy manufacturers came out with a lot of strange, space- influenced products… I was fortunate to own a pair of Moonwalker shoes. These were almost like roller skates, but instead of wheels, they had giant springs. Thick white straps fastened over your shoes and the soles were composed of large red springs. Although the advertisements made it appear you would bounce like an astronaut walking on the surface of the moon, they did NOT work very well. You could bounce much higher on a pogo stick! Also, do you remember silly putty, etch a sketch, spirograph and the slinky, all products of the age of technology?
Now, you may not have owned a pair of authentic Moonwalkers, but who among us can argue, our childhoods WERE defined by our toys. Today, some 40 years later, what are we defined by? Have all these possessions that now possess us become our TOYS? They certainly cost a GREAT deal more. Online shopping and mega- malls have replaced the Wishbooks of our childhood, but they have only succeeded in perpetuating our quest for the dream, not the fulfillment of it. Why is it that we enjoy our toys today half as much?
I turn 47 years old this week, and it surprises me how little I have changed, on the inside. I still have my boots, but where is that BLONDE wig???