Childhood Toys
Ukulele was my first musical instrument (with many more to follow). I taught myself to play, like I did with the guitar and trumpet later.
Cowboy Guns & caps and cowboy hats that were too big and had to be stuffed with Kleenex.
Chemistry Set – I was a science buff and I remember getting a small set and did all the experiments in the manual. I really wanted the big set that was in the Sears Christmas catalog. I never got it.
Dads Army Gear – Most of the boys of that time played “army”. We dressed up in clothes that were too big and put on the helmet and adding the canteens, and lunch kits to our belts. I remember the metal taste drinking out of the canteen it wasn’t pleasant. Reflecting on that, I can’t believe that my Dad drank out of that for years during WWII.
Airplane- I remember going to the football field and watching Barry Armentrout flying model airplanes. This was before remote control, they flew on two wires around in a circle. You could make them do loops and fly over the top. I just had to have one so I bought a kit and put it together. They were made our of balsa wood and had paper stretched and glued on the wings. We painted and “decorated” them and put an engine on them. The first plane flew only 2 times before I wrecked it. We also had one that was plastic and held together with rubber bands. We had fun crashing that one.
Bands
Beach Boys
Rolling Stones
Paul Reverie and the Raiders
Simon & Garfunkel
Peter Paul and Mary
Supremes
Neil Diamond
John Denver
Sly and the Family Stones
Childhood Books
Unfortunately, I don’t remember any childhood books except “Little Black Sambo” which is not appropriate now. Grandma Wagler always told us bible stories.
However as I got older I loved Black Beauty, Tom Sawyer, and the Hardy Boys (read all I could find. In the sixth grade we had a reading contest at the library and I read all the Sherlock Holmes stories and all the Perry Mason books by Erle Stanley Gardner, and won the summer contest. BTW Perry Mason went from print to movies and then black and white TV in the 50s and 60s.
Then I got hooked on biographies and that was the end of fiction in my life.
