What's old is new

Construx was a brand of plastic building toys introduced by Fisher-Price in 1983. For a long time, they were one of my brother's most favorite toys. He recalls: "They made the BEST g.i. Joe and muscle men forts." The toy featured beam-like pieces of varying lengths that snapped on to cubical connector knots in order to build large shapes. Sadly, Construx was discontinued in 1988. Stupid people. My mother, God bless her basement, kept the old box of Construx as well as a big box of Capsela (and whole knows what else remains to be unearthed). Mixed in those boxes were a whole bunch of other treasures like some old 1970s Matchbox cars. When Justin came around, we resurrected these toys out of the basement. But, he never showed much interest in these kinds of building toys. The boxes moved with us to Colorado and have been tucked away in the top of a closet ever since. Over the weekend I pulled the one box of Construx down for Sawyer. We didn't hear from him for the rest of the weekend.


He built, and rebuilt, discovered the glow-in-the-dark pieces and — WHEELS! It makes me kind of sad about all the toys we gave away when we were young – the original Star Wars action figures, the Weeble Treehouse, Playmobile, the Fisher Price Sesame Street "People" village.



Ah, the joy of growing up in the dawn of plastics. I did save my Barbie and all her 1970s attire, which will be handed down to Arden one of these days. And the doll house (which needs a remodel) along with all its fancy furniture and tiny little pieces will someday be hers.

My mom's closet also holds hidden treasures. When I went home in August, she gave me these kicky boots that she wore in the 1960s and 70s.

They definitely don't make shoes like they used to (I'm lucky to see my shoes last three years). I pulled out the disintegrating liners, washed the boots out, polished them up and voila! Retro awesomeness.

I think about all my moves — in the past decade alone I've moved six times. Partly because I lack space and partly because I feel like stuff just weighs me down, I shed my things whenever possible and try to keep my sentimental items contained to one box. That said, I sure do enjoy the vintage hand-me-downs.