Posted by Tara Winner on 01/24/2012
It’s 6:30 a.m. on a January morning in 1977 when the alarm clock rings to wake my sister and me for school. I crawl out of bed, look out the window, and notice that it snowed overnight. I can barely see the cars on the street with the thick layer of flakes covering them. I quickly run downstairs, turn on the radio, and listen intently. To my delight, I hear the magic words, “School is closed today.” With confirmation from my mother that school is indeed closed for the day, my morning tiredness turns into pure excitement. Not because school was closed—I loved going to school—but why it was closed: snow! My sister and I couldn’t wait to put on our snowsuits, meet up with our next door neighbor, and head down the street with our sleds. This would be a “downhill” kind of day.
While supercharged versions of sledding such as luging and bobsledding qualify as sports, sledding itself falls into the category of pure play. Hours of fun lie ahead when you have a sled and are presented with a thick layer of snow covering big hills, small hills, or hills with lots of bumps. Toboggans, snow tubes, saucers, wooden sleds, plastic sleds, metal sleds, sleds with runners, and steerable sleds all serve one main purpose: to get you from the top of a hill to the bottom in a swift and exciting manner. With a little inspiration, a cafeteria tray smuggled back to the dorm or a sheet of cardboard from the basement can take you sliding at top speed!
Posted by Jennifer Giambrone on 01/17/2012
As a kid, I had the good fortune of a basement playroom brimming with toys, from a massive pink Barbie Dream House to bins full of Lego bricks and even an air hockey table. Though I enjoyed all these toys, I gravitated to a box full of blank, hardcover books more than anything else in…
Posted by James Leach on 01/10/2012
I grew up in a world without LEGO minifigures. I received my first set of LEGO bricks as a Christmas gift in 1973—a wide, white box full of flat, green “grass” pieces, primary-colored bricks, and potential. I constructed houses with doors and windows that opened and closed. I built cars, both the ones illustrated on…
Posted by Lauren Sodano on 01/03/2012
Some folks have reported visions of sugarplums recently—I’ve worked so closely with museum artifacts that I’m hearing their voices. Call me the Toy Whisperer or just plain loopy, but I listen when the museum’s toys and games talk about their New Year’s resolutions. The artifacts have some ambitious goals for 2012, but this doesn’t surprise…
Posted by Carol Sandler on 12/27/2011
Recently, a museum guest asked me to tell her about the most interesting question I’d received as director of the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play. The answer was easy—I take great satisfaction in uncovering some elusive fragment of information that helps a researcher resolve an issue or solve a puzzle. As more information…
Posted by Nicolas Ricketts on 12/20/2011
I was eight years old in 1968 and, like many of my friends, I played with toy cars. That year, Mattel introduced toy autos called Hot Wheels. Unlike the toy cars before them, Hot Wheels rolled really fast either downhill or with a touch of a finger. Accessories such as track sets and collector cases…
Posted by Victoria Gray on 12/13/2011
The holiday season is once again upon us. With seasonal songs filling the airwaves and retailers decorated with all that sparkles, I am amazed at how the holidays have managed to find their way back again so soon—this time more expensive than ever. For more than 125 years, advertising has played a key role in…
Posted by Lauren Sodano on 12/06/2011
Getting behind the wheel can be stressful. Congestion, construction, and detours are no day at the beach . . . especially when all we want to do is make it to the beach. Most of us enjoy a good road trip, but with so many obstacles taking the air out of our tires, who can…
Posted by Megan Charland on 11/29/2011
My three younger siblings and I loved playing outside and going on adventures in our large backyard and adjacent woods. But, when bad weather kept us stuck inside, we turned to board games—Scrabble, Monopoly, Candy Land—or, much to my brother’s dismay, hours of playing with Barbie. I can’t remember a time when my two sisters…
Posted by Rick Sherin on 11/22/2011
Yes, it’s that time of year again. Football teams all across the country are well into their fall schedules with countless fans flocking to see their favorite clashes, anticipating the season’s end with that American tradition—the Super Bowl. Though I played both football and baseball in high school, I have to admit that football was…
It’s 6:30 a.m. on a January morning in 1977 when the alarm clock rings to wake my sister and me for school. I crawl out of bed, look out the window, and notice that it snowed overnight. I can barely see the cars on the street with the thick layer of flakes covering them. I quickly run downstairs, turn on the radio, and listen intently. To my delight, I hear the magic words, “School is closed today.” With confirmation from my mother that school is indeed closed for the day, my morning tiredness turns into pure excitement. Not because school was closed—I loved going to school—but why it was closed: snow! My sister and I couldn’t wait to put on our snowsuits, meet up with our next door neighbor, and head down the street with our sleds. This would be a “downhill” kind of day.
