Ieyeayeai

    You probably noticed this. If you didn't, you should have. Last week the stick was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame. I have a feeling I am not the only reader of this extraordinary news to grin at the announcement. Not only did the news bring back fond memories of my own play with sticks (some of them not very old memories), I suddenly felt unusually optimistic about humanity, knowing that we have created a museum dedicated to enshrining and encouraging the serious art of play.
    If you haven't checked out the website for this amazing museum, you should. You may not be surprised to discover exactly what 41 toys have already been inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame...depending on where you were raised you surely have played with a few. In some cases, you've probably played with most or all of them. Besides the stick, one of my other favorites is the cardboard box. Imagine the quality of thought invested in determining that the stick and the cardboard box are worthy of toy fame!
    It's fascinating to read the write-ups of the various toys that occupy places of honor. Here's what the museum has to say about the stick [Please note, this material is copyrighted by the Strong National Museum of Play. I have copied it here because I couldn't figure out a way to link directly to it.]

The stick may be the world's oldest toy. Animals play with sticks, and we use them to play fetch with our dogs. Children find sticks an endless source of make-believe fun. Sticks can turn into swords, magic wands, majorette batons, fishing poles, and light sabers. When children pretend with sticks, they cultivate their creativity and develop their imagination. They explore as they search outdoors for just the right one. Children build with sticks, bat balls with them, and walk with them. They are the original building blocks for creative play. Sticks also promote free play—the freedom to invent and discover. They encourage playing outside instead of inside. Sticks are all around us; they are natural and free. And playing with sticks isn't just for children and animals Adult artists, crafters, decorators, and architects all make use of sticks in sculptures, wreaths, furniture, and building design. Few adults or children can resist simple play with sticks—from drawing in the sand on the beach, to building a campfire and then toasting marshmallows. Sticks are not only possibly the oldest toy, they're possibly the best!

    Browsing the video of inducted toys, I couldn't help but remember Toys of Great Meaning to me, both as a child and an adult. I was delighted to discover that the museum encourages nomination of toys and includes a nomination form at the site which delineates the four criteria by which toys are judged in order to deem them iconic. The most important is criterion #4, entitled Innovation. Here are some of the toys with which I've spent long hours playing (listed in no particular order) that haven't yet found a place in the National Toy Hall of Fame [For a straight, written list of already inducted toys, click here]:

• Rocks: Great for building structures, my favorite of which were fireplaces, around which I pretended I was a Nature Dweller, and dams in streams of rain run-off; practicing throwing; using as markers for hopscotch; skipping across bodies of water; substituting for jacks; and, just wondering over particularly strange and noteworthy stones.
• Blankets: Can be fashioned into imaginary wardrobes for fantasy characters; make serviceable tents, both indoors and out.
• Chemistry Sets: Oh, my, what fun I had with my first and second chemistry sets! I not only experimented with the chemicals, I learned how to reshape glass with heat (accidentally, I admit, but it was a happy accident).
• Models: At various times I was fascinated with constructing and painting models of birds and horses. One of my sisters loved putting together models of monsters. And, of course, many, many kids, and adults, construct models of conveyances of all types, rooms and buildings.
• Which brings to mind Popsicle Sticks, Burnt Wooden Matches and Toothpicks: All very handy for constructing a variety of models.
• Deck of Cards: The card games, themselves, aren't the only fun provided by this simple toy. They can also be used for model building and astonishing one's friends, and oneself, with magic tricks. And, of course, there is the ever exasperating game of 52 Pick-up. Who hasn't had a sibling tempt one into playing a round of this nasty trick of a game? It's probably one of the foremost landmarks in The Death of Innocence.
• Which reminds me of Pick-Up Sticks: Curious as this toy is, I loved the challenge of trying to remove sticks without disturbing others and spent many engrossed hours doing this.
• Blowing Bubbles Solution: How could this toy not have made the list???? In our family, it was a special toy allowed on only certain occasions because my mother (who probably wasn't alone in this concern) didn't particularly like the soapy mess that coagulated on furniture, walls and floors when the bubbles popped.
• Chess: I'm surprised this one hasn't yet made the list. I'm can't imagine that it hasn't been suggested. Perhaps it's considered too serious, too much work. However, playing chess isn't the only activity these sets provoke. I never learned to play chess, never wanted to, and yet I spent many concentrated hours setting up chess pieces on the chess board and working out dramas among the pieces. Checkers doesn't lend itself, really to this type of play, because, except for two colors, the pieces, themselves, are all the same.
• Parcheesi: How could this game not have made it into the Toy Hall of Fame? Is it possible that, in the Museum's 10 year history no one has suggested it? Not only is it iconic on its own, and very old, besides, the game Sorry is based on it. It was one of my family's favorite games.
• Trivial Pursuit: This is, of course, a late comer to the game genre, but it certainly changed the face of gaming and it has millions of devotees.
• The Ball: That's right, the simple, sturdy ball. It has so many incarnations that it's probably prehistoric and mostly likely morphed out of a round rock. As a species, we spend an extraordinary amount of time playing (and working, if one is a professional athlete) at moving a ball from one place to another. It also has a place in the old game of Dodge Ball as a play-weapon (I've heard that this game has been banned from some playgrounds, which I understand, but, when I was in elementary school, I was a Dodge Ball champion).
• Monkey Bars: Need I say more?
• And, how about Swings: Any sort. Tires strung on ropes, ropes extended from trees over ground or water, hammocks, the metal and canvas or board constructs at parks and playgrounds.
• Slides: What's more fun than sliding down a slide? I'll tell you what: Climbing up the slippery part of the slide.
• Trees: Oh my, climbing trees, swinging from trees, hiding in trees, staking out Contemplation Territory in trees, building forts and tree houses, trees are essential toys in areas where they are a part of the environment.
• Paper Dolls: My favorite paper doll activity was to design and make my own clothes for my paper dolls. At one time I set about making international Girl Scout costumes for one of my paper dolls. I can't remember if I managed to make all the costumes, but I think I very nearly got them all.

    I could go on, but I won't; I'll leave that to you. I'll bet you can think of a unique list of your own favorites that is at least as long as mine. Consider nominating some of your favorite toys for induction into Strong's National Museum of Play Toy Hall of Fame. That's what I plan to do. In the meantime, I think I'll just sit here and revel, for a bit, in the activity of thinking about play, how I've played, how I continue to play and how play is so fundamental to us as a species (and other species, as well) that it may very well be fundamental to life. Not a few psychologists who study creativity believe, for instance, that the phenomenon of advanced involvement to which they often refer as "flow" is indistinguishable from play. I wonder, too, for instance, if insects play and, if they do, how they play. Considering that I appropriate life (a kind of life, anyway) to units of existence that are normally considered lifeless, such as rocks, I wonder if they play, in some eccentric dimension to which we soft, fast creatures are not privy. If it weren't for play I never would have taught myself to write, to read, to type, to work computers, to fool around with blogging...in fact, it could be said that I'm playing, right now.

Labels: eye, play