Toys from flowers, toothpicks, and pea pods
Hollyhocks make the cutest little dolls.
Yeah, we did a lot of that. You’d pick the blossoms, and you’d pick a bud, and you’d use a toothpick to fasten them together. And you had yourself a doll.
If you had a toothpick. Just cut a branch in half.
And you could also use toothpicks for arms. And, oh, when mother had us helping to shell peas, we’d use pieces of paper and…
Did you make boats?
Toothpicks again to make sailboats or rowboats. And we’d float those in the water.
Do you mean with the pods.
Yeah, crack them open.
I think I can remember when I was about four, every time my mother shelled peas I would line up the pods in the living room. I guess it kept me out of trouble.
Right, which you got into later.
I liked to play marbles with the guys. And you know, they had those big ones, you know, they’d shoot and stuff. But they made me quit because I got all of their marbles.
But I do have to add that my brother was of your ilk, and he famously was doing an experiment in the basement and managed to singe off his eyebrows and my brother’s eyebrows as well in a fancy experiment.
Well, yeah, the eyebrows were singed. The hair was singed.
They’ll grow back right?
And actually, you know, the plastic lenses were pitted, you know, it sort of stung a little.
Protected your eyes.
Oh yeah.
Which was a good thing.
Basically, I was a firm believer in safety glasses. And I think roughly from about age eleven until about three months ago I was nearsighted. Then I got cataract surgery and now I’m completely corrected for distance vision.