Childhood Memories: The Toys I Wanted, But Never Received

My friend Susan at the blog Girls in White Dresses, does a weekly Friday Childhood Memories post. Today I’m following her example and posting about toys I wanted but never received! Poor me!

The winner by way more than a mere nose, is: MARVEL THE MUSTANG. 50 years or so later I can STILL sing the jingle. But, since we had a real horse, and I had a plush ride on horse (though it had wheels), a bouncy hobby horse and the lovely beginnings of a collection of Breyer horses, I never received dear Marvel. I had serious fantasies about riding him thru our living room and “stabling” him beside my bed. But, alas, neither Santa Claus, nor my folks, nor even my very indulgent Great-Uncle ever gave him to me. Sorry, boy….

Lite-Brite makin’ things with light…. Yeah, I still know that jingle, too! So cool, so badly wanted, that it was among the first toys I ever bought for my own children. They’d sit in the totally dark bathroom with it for hours. I loved it, too. But I never had one as a child. It’s still so amazing to me that I included a wall-sized one in one my novels! (Let’s hope a Lite-Brite loving agent reads this and wants to read the manuscript!).

This one will shock even my Mother. I wasn’t very into dolls–only in elementary school did I start playing with Barbie or those Chrissy dolls with the hair that ‘grew’. But, oh how I secretly wanted that seemingly ubiquitous set of dolls in their native folk attire–above are the Dutch dolls. I think they were Madame Alexander dolls, but it seemed to me that every girl in America had a set of these, except poor me. Probably they helped my love of exotic places to grow. But I never received them. My own daughter never showed the slightest interest in such dolls. She preferred Barbie or her blonde, blue-eyed American Girl doll.

I’m not sure where I got to play with these. Maybe in my brief stint in Nursery School? Or at a rare early childhood trip to church or Sunday School? No matter, I wanted these. My brother and I were big Flintstones fans anyway (though we differed on Gazzoo–I was against him, my brother loved him). I could picture myself making this sort of structure and having my stuffed horses, Smokey and Little Joe, in there with me. But, they never appeared under the Christmas tree or at a birthday.

Ok, this isn’t really a “toy.” But I wanted one so badly! But in the 60s you picked a lunch box in first grade and carried it for the rest of your life. I picked Josie and the Pussycats–a new style vinyl lunch box! Cool, right? Well, for first grade in 1968 it sure was. But then, in 2nd or 3rd grade the neighbors English Bulldog ate it and they replaced it, of course, but without seeking my input. I was saddled for the rest of my lunch box carrying days with a Frosted Flakes lunch box featuring Tony the Tiger. Today, I can safely say it had to have been on the Clearance rack! I was devastated.

Had they asked my first pick would have been plaid. Second Snoopy and third the Partridge Family–by the time this happened I was more aware of fads. Kids with “baby-ish” lunch boxes got teased. Plaid would have been safe even in Middle School when a few kids did still carry a lunch box. (My Mom also would never buy little brown lunch bags–they weren’t a necessity. Nor did I ever find little individual bags of chips of Snack Pack cans of fruit–too expensive. It took years of lobbying to get her to buy one package of individual Fritos packs to finally score the elusive Frito Bandito pencil-top eraser ).

What toys did you long for, but never receive? Share your own heartbreak in a comment or linked post!