Toying with emotions
Today on Otaku Ohana, we go in a somewhat different direction from the usual.
I received a press release on Thursday hailing the induction of the Nintendo Game Boy, among others, into the Toy Hall of Fame. I’m not surprised; that little guy changed gaming habits for all time, long before cell phone games were as ubiquitous as they are now.
But it wasn’t the Game Boy that caught my attention when I read the release. It was another toy that just got inducted that I homed in on: the ball. Yes, just the ordinary ol’ ball, the kind you kick, throw, hit, and lose over fences, down gutters and in shrubbery just way too easily.
That “the ball” was only NOW inducted into this previously-unknown-to-me National Toy Hall of Fame piqued my curiosity, so I looked it up online. The hall of fame is apparently a creation of the Strong National Museum of Play, another entity I had never heard of, and was established just in 1998.
Which explains the appallingly short list of toys that so far have made it into the hall of fame. A lot of toys I expected were in there — Barbie, Monopoly, LEGO — along with a particularly strange entry: the stick.
I am serious. A STICK. Not yet included is my most favorite generic toy of all — toy food and drinks — and they’ve already inducted a STICK? I count my childhood as one that was spent outdoors quite a bit, and neither I nor Jason Y. can think of much non-violent use for a stick — although granted my playtime was spent with friends on bikes in neighborhoods that had few trees, so maybe my problem is really that I didn’t have the necessary material to properly enjoy this gift of nature.
Instead, what we had — at least in our old neighborhood prior to moving to our current one — were those little “boats” made of the dried, split seedpods of African tulip trees; the accompanying young buds of said tree, full of liquid and dandy for use in the absence of actual squirt guns; seeds from the golden shower tree, whose actual kernels rattled inside their thick pods, sturdy enough to be used as coins for pretend currency; and hibiscus petals, which we ended up destroying in a way that I will not relate here in order to prevent more blossoms from meeting such a fate.
But, amazingly, NO STICKS. As surrounded as we obviously were by plants that could have provided us with such, WE NEVER USED THEM. Well, I shouldn’t say “never”; rather, I should say, I can’t recall us using sticks for much more than picking up bugs and other items that we were too scared to try to grab with our bare hands. Oh, and as kindling. But that of course was under careful adult supervision.
Let me say that I have nothing against sticks. I just found it funny how, among the list of honored toys that includes a cardboard box — which is also probably the craziest item ever included in a serious video game — seemingly so out of place, was, well, A STICK. We probably got more mileage out of tree leaves than we did sticks.
Still, it’s a reminder that the most nondescript items can be fun — and free. So even as the Nintendo Game Boy gets its due as a playtime pioneer, it’s got some pretty tough competition against the simple stick.
