Kaleidoscope, View Master and Dolls

I am the younger of two kids and we’ve had our share of childhood fights our parents have had to referee. Of course, being the younger one, I never got the benefit of the doubt – they said that I was the instigator. There’s only a year and half difference between the two of us and he was a toddler when I was born. My mum likes to say that he was protective then, so how could he start a fight with me as we grew older.

He took care of his toys and if anything got broken it must have been my carelessness that led to its demise. But, your honor, I would like to present the case of the kaleidoscope and the dolls. They were both presents from other folks, but their eventual demise is not at my hand. Those dolls had mustaches and bindhis inked in by a biro! Then their limbs came out during multiple tug of wars! And the hardly-ever-used nail polish bottles hardened because they were left open too long! My brother thought that he wouldn’t bite his nails if they were coated (that worked and got rid of his nail-biting habit). 

The kaleidoscope didn’t have a chance after one big fall. The glass pieces never moved about like before and soon became a fly swatter if I remember correctly. Fortunately, I got another kaleidoscope and that survived because my brother had moved out by then. It’s not much fun breaking things on your own.

I’m not sure how the view master survived our childhood – I think it survived. The view master (if you don’t know what I’m referring to) is a viewing device, similar to a binoculars, where you plug-in a circular disc embedded with images. These images when viewed through the view master enlarges them into 3D life-size pictures. A pull-down device attached to the side of the view master enables the movement of the circular picture disc and the next life-size image comes into view!

There are multiple soft toys that lived with us and occupies pride of position on the showcase at home mostly because we weren’t allowed to keep it after playing with them. Please remember that this is the 80′s we are talking about and plastic toys were legos. Like socks, some Lego pieces have vanished when we thought of building those blocks again after dismantling. Those are not cheap my friend!