Thursday, December 2, 2010

Blocks In A Wagon

One of my favorite all time toys was a set of building blocks I inherited from my brother.

They were very solid and durable and stained with years of handling.

They came in a wooden wagon complete with wheels.

Man, my imagination took flight with those things and I made a lot of things happen. Mostly of course, they contributed to building walls and forts.

From the Alamo, to cavalry forts, to castles, the blocks were tools fueled by my imagination.

Legions of plastic soldiers fought and died in and outside those block walls, reenacting actual history and a lot of fictional encounters.

I played with em all my childhood.

I guess I was a storyteller with my toys.

I'd think up scenarios, even plots, including backstories and bios, assigning 'parts' to kids I knew.

With a huge collection of toy guns, I devised plenty of play that was never dull.

toys should be tools for the imagination. They are props for plays, stories that unfold perhaps simply early on but with more sophistication as I got older.

It's one of those things I passed on to my kids, who had some magnificent scenarios. Will had a huge bunch of oatmeal boxes and there was quite a parade of things made from them. Same for Erica as they built with Duplos and other next generations of blocks.

Blocks can represent thoughts that can be carefully constructed into ideas.

I'll leave it with the 'gentle readers' of this missive to figure out where we can go.

The only limitation is indeed on oneself.

2 comments:

teacher said...

Getting the blocks out was obviously not a problem for you or yours.

Mike H said...

Self starters, yes.