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But I doubt they are anything like they used to be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ocnjgirl
They were cool, with the little plumes of smoke. I can almost conjure the smell! I don’t know if they still sell them. What they do still sell in a candy store on the boardwalk down here, which surprised me a lot, are candy cigarettes. Same box with cowboy on it, same pink/red end to look like real cigarettes! Whenever I see them I think “who would buy these for a kid today?”’ It’s probably more nostalgic adults. They also still have the wax candy lips and mustaches, the candy dots on paper, and the little wax bottles filled with colored liquid sugar.
Candy cigarettes were fun for a couple minutes. Two puffs of "gum smoke", then they were just bubble gum.
I can't remember the name of thing to save my life, but you put a plastic ring around one ankle and it had a cord with a heavy something on the other end and you sort of hula hooped it with one foot while hopping over the cord with the other. Good exercise until I missed the over part and it wrapped around both ankles, hit one with the heavy thing and landed me like a felled tree on the concrete. Does anyone remember that thing?
I remember some toy rockets that were about nine or ten inches high and made from very hard transparent plastic that you would fill halfway with water then attach a hand pump to the bottom. You would then pump it ten or fifteen times and release a lever to allow it to fly leaving a trail of water behind. Great! But if it was pointed at somebody's eye when it launched it could create some minor problems. If it had gotten cracked from some earlier "splashdowns" and it was over pumped (who would do that?) it would just shatter into dozens of sharp fragments - major problems!.
Back in the '60s, we had a mineral set that included asbestos (see how you can shred it?) and a little bottle of mercury (feel how smooth it is!)
But probably the most dangerous toys are bicycles and skateboards.
As a small child in the 60’s I remember the dentist giving me a drop of mercury in my hand as I left the dentist. When we got in the car to go home I remember it rolling out of my hand to the vinyl floor of the car (a VW bus).
I can't remember the name of thing to save my life, but you put a plastic ring around one ankle and it had a cord with a heavy something on the other end and you sort of hula hooped it with one foot while hopping over the cord with the other. Good exercise until I missed the over part and it wrapped around both ankles, hit one with the heavy thing and landed me like a felled tree on the concrete. Does anyone remember that thing?
It was called a "Jingle Jump" and I loved mine; used to run up and down the street with it. Always had scabby knees to show for it.
The answers on here are cracking me up and giving me fond memories of toys that we were lucky didn't kill or maim us, lol. My brothers used to take those rolls of caps and bang rocks on them so they'd go off, never mind putting them in their toy six-shooters.
My mother wouldn't let me have an Easy-Bake Oven because she thought it was dangerous; same with Thingmaker. Smart mom.
The answers on here are cracking me up and giving me fond memories of toys that we were lucky didn't kill or maim us, lol. My brothers used to take those rolls of caps and bang rocks on them so they'd go off, never mind putting them in their toy six-shooters.
My mother wouldn't let me have an Easy-Bake Oven because she thought it was dangerous; same with Thingmaker. Smart mom.
My mom didn’t want us to have access to sweets, not to mention having to buy more easy bake mixes. Easy Bake oven was a big nope in our house.
A friend of mine got one though, and we did make some thing and then eat it and, I really wasn’t missing out on anything. Those mixes were terrible.
I heard a guy on the radio once saying his mom would let him play with the mercury when they broke a thermometer.
I always played with Mercury. Used to take a silver dime and rub Mercury on it to make it really shine. That's why I'm mad as a hatter today
I also played with fireworks as a teen. Put an M80 in an upside down garbage can and watch the can lift off the ground!
But the toy that got me into trouble was a cheap magnifying glass. I was frying ants with the beam through the glass and set the garage on fire! Total loss because I was afraid to go inside and call for help
I had the Thingmaker, the molds were aluminum if I remember. Holds heat real well and you can’t tell it’s still hot. I also had plastic models that used cement that would get you high from the fumes, no doubt caused cancer too. I got a GI Joe Jeep and cannon one Christmas. The cannon launched a hard plastic missile with a pretty stout spring. Put one through a window and across the street. We also played with propeller driven cars that were fueled with some kind of two stroke gas. You were supposed to attach it to a cord and have it circle you in a parking lot. Na, we would start that sucker up and send it down the street. Quite loud and dangerous as hell with that prop spinning like a knife at 5000 rpm. Those things were fast too. Had the usual sling shots to shoot ball bearings and glass marbles. You could buy plastic straws and a bag of dried peas to shoot each other. BB guns, I walked in the 5 n dime store, by myself, and bought one at 10 years old, guy gave me a tube of bbs for free. I remember shooting a cork pop gun at the local carnival for packs of cigarettes. I was just 11 years old, all the packs I won, I’d take them home to my grandma who smoked. But back in those days, they didn’t care. And of course, fireworks. Bottle rockets, Roman candles, firecrackers, lady fingers, jumping jacks, m80’s. They didn’t have firework stands, you bought them at the drugstore, all summer long! I had fun as a kid in the 60’s and 70’s and I didn’t die. I got hurt but so what, we were little troopers. Just get up and continue on. Just had to be home when the street lights came on.
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Solly says — Be nice!
