Pappy’s creative imagination

I was visiting my grandkids and saw them playing with “X-Box” in the living room, and I said with a deep breath; “I would’ve loved to have one of those new games instead of playing with Rubix Cube,when I was younger!” They asked, “Were you a kid too, pappy?” and laughing I said, “Sure, believe it or not!” “And what did you play?” they asked. “Well, I played with Rubix Cube, Evil Knievil, andother toys we had!” “Pappy, what is Evil can evil?” They asked. “It’s Evil Knievil, not Evil can evil, Evil Knievil was a famous motorcycle rider from the 70’s, the toy was so cool; we had tobuild pressure with a small pump, and then release the motorcycle at very fast speeds!” I said. “Did Evil Knievil need batteries?” They asked. “No way, back then most toys didn’t have batteries!” Isaid. “Did video games exist?” I continued to tell them about the toys we had back then like, “ATARI”, but at the same time explaining how poor most families were, and how they couldn’t afford videogames, sometimes not having a television set.
Their words gave me some flashbacks, and I told myself, “Toy makers now days, don’t know how entertain kids.” Unconsciously, my thoughts went back intime to the old playgrounds near my neighborhood. All the kids had unique and affordable toys; some had Slinky, Jacks, Marbles, and many others, but you had to be careful, because we lived in poorneighborhoods and bigger kids would take or steal the toys from the younger ones.
There was one game we all like playing, which it didn’t require batteries nor electricity, and that was playing “Indiansand Cowboys”. I remember we made groups of Indians and Cowboys with homemade rifles, bows, arrows, horses, and costumes. Oh! What a great time we had. This game went on for hours; we even forgot tocome home for lunch or dinner, all the kids in the neighborhood got along so well, we would sit at the end of the game to laugh about all the funny anecdotes from that evening!
Returning from my...