What were your favorite toys as a child?
Questions asked and answered for my daughters
Action figures. Could this story end there? Maybe, but why them over others? When I think my favorite toys growing up, there are definitely ones that are contenders for the top-spot:
1) My bike. This got me where I wanted to go before I could drive. It made my world bigger and bigger slowly, as I rode it every day.
2) My Nintendo. The escape and friend-building video game console that is still influencing my every day.
3) My sports gear. Baseball gloves, bats, tennis racquets, etc. are all things that have shaped who I am, built friendships, and taught me so many things.
But, if there is a category of toys that takes all of the philosophical elements of the top contenders and puts them into one, it is… action figures.
Action figures is a giant category that covers my childhood toys from plastic green army men and indians, to G.I. Joe and Cobra, to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to He-Man. All of these action figures allowed me to create my own world for them and continue to play out their stories.
Unfortunately, I don’t have many of the action figures I had growing up, but I do have some. I also keep a small collection of action figures now that are “display only,” which I admire every time I walk in my home office… Assassin’s Creed, Ghostbusters, Captain America, Star Wars, and even new versions of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
I may not physically play with action figures anymore, but every time I look at them, I think about and play out their stories in my mind. I guess that’s the adult version of what I did when I was little. Not much has changed.
Create your stories and expand your world. Never grow up.
