There are 2 times of year when I get sentimental over childhood and the toys that I had as a kid.  They are Christmas and summer.  Since we are at the halfway point of summer vacation for kids, I thought I'd think back to what an 6 year old Maie would have wanted to do on a day like today.

Well to start, I would have wanted to go play with Johnny up the street.  I'd ride my red tricycle over and knock on the door and see if he could come out to play.  Remember how we did that? No phones, texts or e-mail ... just simply walk over and knock. Wow!

He was a year younger than me and my closest buddy both in terms of distance and relationship.  Unfortunately his Mom insisted he have afternoon naps so getting an early play date with him was imperative.  He had a sandbox in his yard so we'd muck in there for awhile.  He also had lego which I didn't and I loved that stuff.

Then I'd play footsie with him but it's not what you think.  My Footsie was a jumping game which involved sticking my foot through a plastic ring that had a string and cup attached and having to to hula the ring around with one foot while the other jumped over the rope.

After lunch while Johnny was napping, perhaps I'd break out my Clackers.  These were around only for a short period of time. They discovered the hard acrylic that the Cracker spheres were made of, could splinter and hurt and or blind kids so they were eventually banned.  Go figure.

What strikes me, as I think about the stuff I'd be doing today as a 6 year old would probably be soooo boring to today's 6 year old. But then, I guess I have to remember that my Mom told me about playing with pine cones and pretending they were barn yard animals. And I thought that was just so deprived.  Every generation thinks the new one has way better and more toys, yet we also all seem to remember our toys and summers with great fondness.