Land of The Free, Home of the Brainless (Silverton Style)
July 13, 2012
Kendall Mtn. Run (Silverton Style)
July 27, 2012
The inspiration for this essay came from a visit with friends and their three year old showing me his new toys. This got me thinking about my own adolescence and sure enough we see the resulting essay you’re about to read. Here’s hoping you have as much fun reading this as I did writing it.
Word Count: 838
The New
Toy Connection
When my mother’s family was unceremoniously kicked out of China a large portion of the clan settled in and around the Bay area of northern California (San Francisco). My mom who’d left to go to college in the states a year earlier, ended up in Colorado. Subsequently all the adults in her family used to refer to us as the “Chaowanyang” (“Interior” in Cantonese) grandchildren. Primarily as a term of endearment.
Another result was my mom, four sisters, and myself traveling out west to visit the California relatives on a regular basis every summer. Dad came with us whenever he could, but work at our family grocery store often kept him from accompanying everyone. We’d still make the trip every summer though, and one of the great things about traveling to the “Sunshine State” on a regular basis was what we’d discover while visiting family. Wonder of wonders, some of it’s actually worth telling you about too.
We’d always get to check out the newest fashions in toys and other playthings. Now since the west coast (and California in particular) happens to be on the cutting edge of popular culture, bringing whatever new items we’d purchased back to Silverton became an important end result of the trips out west.
Trends shifted from year to year, but certain ones really stick out in my mind. Does anyone remember “Whizzers”? Of course you do. The miniature tops you spin into action by whipping them madly across the ground. Followed by setting the mini-top into place and letting it twirl until they ran out of momentum and dropped. Were these things cool or what? To a ten-year-old kid, playing with the toy was analogous to being mercilessly trapped inside a candy store overnight.
The really cool thing was the fact that my sisters and I started playing with the toys way before a lot of other kids around here had them. In some cases we’d bring the item back home before it had even gotten into any of the stores.
One year it was actually two weeks after returning to Colorado and we still hadn’t seen “Whizzers” at the “F.W. Woolworth” store in Durango. Obviously this wasn’t an in depth scientific investigation, but we’d observed the phenomenon during a dental appointment so therefore it had to be true.
What about those things called “Clackers”? Plastic balls attached to a string you knock together then insanely bang back and forth. Was not finding them back home another “Woolworth” situation in action? Maybe the fact that the “Clackers” had been taken off the market due to the danger they might cause being the main reason you didn’t see them in the stores. Naah, us beating the rest of the kid competition sounds like a better explanation. More mysterious, and obviously more exciting.
My older sisters were into the usual Barbie doll obsessions. On numerous occasions they’d return from our trip to San Fran. with all the latest costumes you could dress your Barbie collection up in. Did this place them on a higher pedestal in terms of where they stood on the “Friendship” scale? I’m sure it didn’t hurt their standing.
One year the big purchase was three or four different sets of Yo-yos. Now this item has been around since the mid-50s, but none of us had ever seen it in action, let alone played with one. Therefore it was new to us.
While still out in Cal. we started learning a few tricks. Then once we got back home the “practice makes perfect” segment of the operation kicked in big time. One of my sisters and I actually stuck to playing with our Yo-yos past the inevitable boredom phase. Even ordered the “Wamm-o Guidebook to Mastering Your Yo-Yo” which never showed up despite our daily trips to the post office with crossed fingers.
Now Skateboards and riding them was a big part of my adolescence. For many, California represents the hotbed and pinnacle of the sport in terms of ability, places to practice your craft, and products. All sorts of trips out west resulted in me returning with the latest types of wheels, planks, and various other paraphernalia. Use of these commodities I’d bring back to the mountains may have actually led to an improvement in my abilities as a skateboarder. At least I like to think they did.
The rise of the Internet and a person’s ability to purchase new items as soon as they’re commercially marketed has definitely leveled the playing field within the last thirty years. Colorado and California just don’t seem quite as distant as they did back in my youth.
You can pretty much get anything you want as fast as its produced. Whether you live in N.Y.C., or the Upper Peninsula of northern Michigan. My memories of the toy purchases while in California will always stand out though. I couldn’t help but feel like I was one step ahead of all the other kids here in “The Interior.”
