Though I am competitive, I’m not well coordinated or graceful. You probably wouldn’t have guessed that my greatest victory was even vaguely athletic. After all, I was the pitiful child who crossed the finish line dead last in my elementary school’s Turkey Trot one-mile race. I eliminated myself from field hockey tryouts because I gagged on the mouth guard. I made exactly two baskets in two seasons of intramural basketball. At least the TV cameras turned me into a winner.

My shining moment happened at a taping of The Bozo Show in Philadelphia around 1990. Bozo (played by Bob McCone) built suspense, asking audience members to raise their hands in support as I threw ping-pong balls into six buckets. The first four buckets were easy, but I overshot the fifth. Bozo asked my father to try the last two buckets to win the grand prize, a 13-inch color TV. Dad made a perfect toss into bucket number five . . . and the ball bounced back out! Game over. Even Bozo looked shocked.

Was the experience everything I’d hoped it would be? Not really. Let’s be honest here—Bozo’s bodacious hair was not real. The show wasn’t the same without the glitzy graphics added in post-production, either. I also learned that clowns make mistakes; Bozo got ahead of himself when I went for the second bucket and accidentally revealed the third-round prize. The flustered clown struggled to correct himself. Fortunately, I clinched the third bucket and won the prize after all, a children’s cookbook, along with a Bozo bendy toy, Crayola Markers, a My Little Pony, and Friendly’s Ice Cream. When Bozo filled my arms with goodies, the ice cream box was surprisingly empty. Had I actually expected him to hand me a melting container of cookies ‘n cream? Of course the box was just a prop.

These revealing details were my reward—and punishment—for peeking behind the proverbial curtain. Thanks to my experience on The Bozo Show, I stopped believing in the inherent truthfulness or infallibility of television at an early age. Today I know that television’s other sleights of hand include cooking shows, where the host prepares a pot roast and serves it before the credits roll, and reality TV, where sensationally dramatic moments consume the participants’ waking hours. But every time I run into a Bozo toy in the museum’s collections, I still get a glimmer of my moment of glory—such as it was.

Ruth Rosenfeld began collecting small things and assembling dollhouses and miniature rooms in the mid-1970s. For her first project, she created a general store furnished with floor-to-ceiling shelves stocked with merchandise. In Ruth’s 30 years of collecting, organizing, and arranging her miniatures, she put together three very large dollhouses, several smaller ones, and some 60 miniature rooms, including examples of Early American taverns,  Victorian dining rooms, and modern kitchens, living rooms, and libraries. Other miniature rooms represented a milliner’s shop, toy stores, a quilt shop, a bookstore, and even an art gallery of Southwest Native American art. She also filled five rooms with well-made Shaker furnishings. Inspired by her travels, Ruth devoted several rooms to replicating homes and scenes from the foreign countries she had visited. She made a Japanese tea house, a street scene in Peru, a gallery of African figures, the dining and sitting area of a Chinese home, and a gallery of artifacts excavated from the tomb of King Tutankhamen.

Toys to children, hobbies to adults, miniatures fascinate us all. Kids use dollhouses and similar sets of small figures and structures as props for fantasy and imagination. Children narrate the actions of the figures and settings of their play, and they create and control their world of miniatures. For adult hobbyists, miniatures represent the worlds to control, too.  Adults often recreate places they cherish and settings they wish never to forget.

When most of us look at miniatures, we stare in wonder at the craftsmanship and detail, just as a child might, and ask “how do they do that?”

Miller has chalked up an unmatched list of victories in each of the different alpine events— 32 World Cup trophies at latest count and bronze, silver, and gold medals at this winter Olympics. His record is especially remarkable because the skills that slalom requires (technique) and the demands of Super-G (speed) are so very different. Yet Miller has all the while insisted that winning isn’t his “goal,” not precisely, not per se. “I didn’t love racing to beat other guys,” he said. He is after something else. That something else has earned him praise for his independence and inspiration when he wins and blame for his cussedness and self-indulgence when he loses.

Now just for the record, no one skis like Miller. He surely has a nose for the “fall line,” the shortest, steepest, fastest streak between gates. The arms flailing, the backward lean that courts disaster, often bellowing in full voice, a style the press often calls reckless. And, built more like a linebacker than a downhill racer, he has proved that he is unafraid of 60-mile-an-hour crashes onto rock-hard slopes. (Once when he lost a ski, he playfully finished the race on one foot and caught the devil from his coaches.)

Raised in rough country New Hampshire, homeschooled in a household without electricity or indoor plumbing, he’s at home in the woods alone with his rambling, original thoughts. But when it comes to the national media, he is careless with his image. After an unfortunate showing at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, where he was odds-on favorite to medal in five events but instead racked up several DNF (did not finish) notations and one DQ for missing a gate, he fended off disappointed reporters by saying that, even though he came up without a medal, at least he had partied like an Olympian. Most already regarded him as diffident and bratty, but with this comeback he managed to make expectant fans think that he was a bad example, too. Poor Bode, he had a problem.

But, to hear the skier’s side of the story, his thinking was entirely consistent. It was press, public, and sponsors who didn’t get it. Miller’s goal, the personal objective that superseded all others, was to pursue speed and fun. Let the medals fall where they may; winning or losing were merely by-products of this unruly pursuit. Usually the strategy worked for him, but wipeouts, too, are quite beside the point for Miller. (“I was having the greatest time making mistakes, crashing,” he once said.) He has instead set out to explore human capability, gravity, and his equipment’s tolerances at the limits of performance—“to ski as fast as the natural universe will allow.” Skiing on the brink this way, trading control for fun, he plunges downhill “right on the edge of what my skis and the snow will hold up to.” A brilliant French thinker, the play-theorist Roger Caillois, once looked for a name for this special joy, the dizzying pleasure of swings and roller-coasters and stunt-flying and steeplechase and skiing. “Vertigo” came close. But in the end he borrowed a Greek word that fit better: ilinx, “the whirlpool.”

Most serious-minded alpine competitors avoid dizzying pleasure, especially when they’re heading downhill at 90 miles per hour. In fact, the demands of Olympic level downhill competition (the precision technique it ordinarily requires, the tough training, the studied authority of coaches, the team protocol, the high expectations of sponsors, the certainty of injury, the intrusions of the press, the hope of nations riding on a single ski run) all stack up against wildness. Ilinx, the scholar reasonably declared, is “incompatible” with the organized codified competition; this is a “forbidden relationship.” The competitor must behave. Commentators are already framing Bode’s triumphs as redemption. He got another shot; he has redeemed himself by winning. But they miss the point. Here instead is the point: with an inspired approach that bucks the odds and conventional wisdom, Bode Miller has managed to excel while at play in the whirlpool.

Initially, though, candy makers had their work cut out for them. Valentine cards were the established tradition, so candy needed to be positioned as a suitably romantic gift. One way was to play up candy in valentine shapes, especially hearts. The New England Confectionery Company (better known today as NECCO) had been producing printed messages on sugar lozenges for years and even turned out candy sayings on goodies shaped like baseballs, horseshoes, and watches. But it took them until 1902 to introduce Sweetheart Conversation Hearts. Through the years, the cardiac-inspired concept has been adopted (stolen?) by other manufacturers, as can be seen in this Brach’s ad from Strong National Museum of Play’s collection.

Candy for Valentine’s Day often came in a box that conveyed a clear message of love, and might even have eliminated the need for a valentine card. Conversation hearts themselves became such a part of Valentine’s Day that they even turned up on the lid of this 1970s heart-shaped chocolate box with its central request, “Be My Valentine.” And though this box is sweet, undoubtedly the most impressive valentine candy box the museum owns is an enormous heart, covered with red satin, ruffles, ribbon, and lace. If you’ve ever worn your heart on your sleeve, you’ll notice that this box goes further and could almost serve as full-body armor (if you have any doubts about how the object of your affections will respond to the gift.) If bigger is better, then this chocolate box has to be just about the best. It was the grand prize in a sweepstakes at a Rochester pharmacy in the 1960s. The winner donated the box to the museum in 1998. Sadly, the candy was long gone by that time. Still, just holding the box made my heart beat faster. Was it love or just a craving for chocolate? You be the judge.

Somehow those proper Victorians took the tradition of sending sweet, heartfelt Valentine cards and turned it on its head. Comic valentines, also known as “penny dreadfuls” or “vinegar valentines,” made up about half the market for Valentine cards. They were amazingly cheap (and looked it) and could be found in variations to suit just about every circumstance. Your looks, your profession, your personal habits—everything was fair game for ridicule. Courtesy of the United States Postal Service, you could anonymously mock, malign, and generally mistreat anyone who’d ticked you off since last Valentine’s Day.

The museum’s collection includes plenty of pretty and sentimental valentines, but it also has its share of comic ones. Hate how someone sings? Here’s a nice rhyme:

When a pig’s getting slaughtered, the noise that it makes
Is sweeter by far than your trills and your shakes;
And the howling of cats in the backyard by night,
Compared with your singing’s a dream of delight.

Seeking vengeance on your butcher? Try:

You’re greasy as the pork you sell,
And tough just like your beef;
Your customers who know you well,
All hope you’ll come to grief.

Think your auto mechanic is substandard?

You’re always working on some car,
Its parts you’re always mixing
Instead of the car, we think your head
Quite badly, needs a fixing.

And don’t forget the opportunity to trash that least-favorite teacher:

Some folks go to college and others go to school
To listen to a teacher act just like a fool.
If knowledge is great riches, then you are poor, indeed,
And words of but one syllable are just about “your speed.”

Whew! I’ve had some less-than-stellar Valentine’s Days in my life, but I’ll count myself lucky that I’ve never been the recipient of comic valentines like these. And if I was ever tempted to send such a nasty note—even anonymously—I’m certain that my butcher would sell me rancid meat or my mechanic would disconnect my brakes! So my helpful Valentine’s Day-shopping hint is to stick to the sweet cards filled with hearts and flowers and leave the nasty ones strictly to the museum’s collection.

Baseball was widely recognized as America’s national sport by the late 1800s, and it continued to grow in popularity in the early twentieth century. Two separate major leagues were in place in 1901, and by 1903 the World Series was established. Baseball was here to stay.

Meanwhile, then-president Woodrow Wilson, who had won reelection in 1916 on an anti-war platform, faced the need for American participation in the terrible “Great War” raging in Europe. He and his cabinet knew that American involvement loomed. But how could the government convince the American public that this was necessary? One idea was to create a poster that urged Americans to metaphorically “Get in the Game,” along with their patriotic national symbol, Uncle Sam.

Artist J.C. Leyendecker (1874-1951) designed the poster, commissioned by the Publicity Committee of the Citizens Preparedness Association, a pro-war organization with federal support which also sponsored “preparedness parades” and other nationalistic activities. Leyendecker himself emigrated from Germany at age eight and was approaching the pinnacle of his career in 1917 when he created this work.

The poster just preceded James Montgomery Flagg’s famous “I Want You” image of Uncle Sam, which later became the best-known likeness of the country’s unofficial symbol. Leyendecker’s version, in spite of his baseball bat, is possibly less affable to contemporary eyes than Flagg’s friendlier Sam. But the bat he holds connected him to many Americans, who perhaps then decided that America should “get in the game.”

We long admired the pioneers for their hard work and ingenuity as they turned the trees of the new world’s forest into simple and sturdy log cabins. The inventor of Lincoln Logs, John Lloyd Wright (son of the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright), designed the toy to resemble the log cabin because he knew how effectively it captured the American mood. The image of the dwelling had served as the logo for successful Presidential campaigns—Abraham Lincoln’s most famously. Amidst the gathering political storm that led to Civil War, the icon helped voters imagine that the homespun orator would bring back simpler, steadier, more resourceful, more self-reliant, and virtuous times.

Over the years the symbol has continued to attract parents, the buyers. But no toy can stay fresh for so long on the strength of marketing alone; it is the technology that makes Lincoln Logs fun. These rounded, notched mini-logs are easily assembled into sturdy miniature cabins that can support the weight of a child. They support the stories children spin, too. The packaging—round to fit round logs—also pictures frontier forts, the essential American outposts. And I even remember how the rage for Davy Crockett—his coonskin cap, and other manly equipment—fueled our imaginations in the 1950s and supported a new enthusiasm for Lincoln Logs.

Curiously, however, the inspiration for the toy was not entirely American. As a teenager, John Lloyd Wright had observed Japanese carpenters notching beams for an “earthquake proof” hotel that Frank Lloyd Wright had designed in Tokyo. During a temblor the resilient structure would sway but not fail.

One more curve brings the story full circle; the son had another and deeper personal reason to choose this name for this toy. Frank Lloyd Wright’s real, given middle name was Lincoln.

You can accelerate the rotation and prolong the spin of a top by attaching a string and rolling it out with a flick of the wrist. Contain the spinning top in a frame, and you’ve created a gyroscope. The gyroscopic effect fights your efforts to change the gyroscope’s position. This seems magical too. Scaled up, the toy stabilizes oceangoing ships and steadies space-faring satellites.

If you join two cone-shaped tops together with the points at the middle, you’ve made a toy known in America as the Diabolo. Juggle this conjoined top on a string, and you can work up its speed until it whirrs. Then toss this devilishly delightful toy up, catch it, and let it roll along like a wheeled tightrope walker. Toss it again. Now reverse the tops, imagining them as wheels. Attach them in the middle with an axle between. Fix one end of a string to the axle, the other to your finger, and let it spin out of your hand. When the spinning toy runs out of string at the bottom it will catch and then start reeling itself up to return to your hand. At last! You’ve made a yo-yo.

Then, second, there is the practical and scientific approach. Some people say footballs are shaped the way they are because they’re more aerodynamic and can be more accurately thrown when spiraled downfield by a quarterback with a strong right arm. This might sound good to someone who hasn’t thrown a football. However, a baseball, which, of course, is round, is easier to throw. For that matter, even a softball, though bigger than a regulation baseball, is easier to throw than a football. But then again, one might argue that with those handles on either end, isn’t a football easier to catch? OK, there might be something to that, but then history invades again; American football developed as a running game before passing came along, and hence before catching was a strategic factor. Finally, nobody would dispute that footballs are harder to kick than soccer balls, and this is a funny thing for a game called football. History comes to a partial rescue here, because the origin of the name football most likely came from games that in medieval times were played on foot—rather than on horseback that is. But this doesn’t help us to answer the original question. Why are footballs shaped like—let’s give the shape a name—prolate spheroids?

I lean toward a third approach: surprises make a game less predictable and more interesting and the shape helps randomize and equalize the game. We don’t play games because they’re easy or predictable. When punted, footballs may land flat and plop. But more often than not, they bounce end over end for ten or twenty yards and wobble to the right or left. They may even bounce backward, giving the punting team a great gift and the fans a thrill. A loose ball is hard to pin down, and a fumbled football is as slippery as a, as a . . . as a greased pig bladder!

Every year since 1964, Hess Corporation, a gasoline and automotive products retailer, has offered a new and different toy truck or vehicle for the holiday season. People of every age admire the trucks for their (mostly) familiar green and white Hess colors, their exquisite detail, and their battery-powered action. The best part? Batteries are always included!

The company Web site credits founder Leon Hess with the idea for the first holiday toy truck. Hess wanted a toy for his oil company to use as a thank-you gift to his loyal customers. A chance conversation at a baseball stadium with a toymaker gave Hess his manufacturer. Production of each truck is limited to one year and the vehicle usually appears in November. But, because Hess demands the highest quality and detail, it takes about three years from concept to finished product.

The Hess truck tradition started with a B MACK Tanker complete with a tank that could be filled with water and emptied through its delivery hose. Hess offered 150,000 toys in 1964 at a price of $1.29, and gas stations around the country quickly sold out their inventory. In the years since, Hess has offered many more trucks, a seafaring oil tanker, fire trucks, training vans, patrol cars, truck and helicopter, and even a truck and space shuttle. Hess also introduced a line of miniature vehicles in 1998. This year, Hess offers a race car (with 29 lights, sounds of ignition, acceleration, and a horn, and chrome detail on the rear view mirrors and air vents) and a miniature racer (sporting 15 lights, chrome vents and rearview mirrors, and low profile headlights). Many truck collectors remember the annual commercials that announce the arrival of each year’s model: “The Hess truck is back, and it’s better than ever!” Or, they wait to see the Hess toy truck float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Are you a Hess toy truck collector? Or did you receive the trucks when you were a kid? If you have a Hess truck memory, let us know. We’d love to hear from you. In the meantime, we wish you the very best of the holiday season and a happy and prosperous new year.