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Back when my brother and I were still small kids, there weren't all these fancy gadgets and toys that kids nowadays grow up with, like cellphones, smartphones, computers, gaming consoles, Game Boys, iPods, et al. In fact, we didn't even have television yet when I was very little, and then later on, when my parents did buy a television set — actually, my maternal grandmother bought one before we did — then it was just a black & white TV with vacuum tubes that needed warming up before you would get sound and a picture, and you had to tune the reception by way of a roof-mounted antenna.
And so kids our age would play outside with other kids when the weather was nice, and then we would re-enact some epic battle between knights from Europe's very rich history — or some variation to that theme — or we would re-enact World War II, or we'd play cops & robbers or cowboys & Indians. We even built Star Trek phasers out of Lego, or, if it had snowed and it was freezing hard for days on end, out of ice and snow — of course, you had to leave them outside for the night or they would melt. But we used our imagination.
Nowadays, kids are spoiled rotten with all kinds of toys and gadgets — they don't even have to wait for Christmas, a birthday or Santa to get them — and they're easily bored, so they don't even respect any of their toys anymore.
You might find this silly, but I still own my Matchbox toy cars (and some other toys) from when I was very little, and there are at least two of those Matchbox cars which I got when I was 2-3 years old. And they're still in very good condition too. People have already offered me lots of money for them, but I'm not selling them. They are mementos of a time of innocence — a time that, quite frankly, I often miss very dearly, exactly because of that innocence. Life was so much easier back then. |