I remember bigger ones and Mattel Fanner 50s plus Remco Rocket Cannons and card board space helmets , rolls of caps and last but not least picture lunch boxes ....

and wrap it around itself to make bracelets or a choker?

And people bought it. Of course, I was a sweet kid then. Little did they know,,,

It looked like those tiny seed beads, but I somehow never knew what to do with the ends of the wire.

And I always wanted Rock'em Sock'em robots, but I never got them dang it.

They were really cool.

it was a really. cool toy. Like the slinky kind of timeless .

My favorite toy was the Air Blaster.

Alas, it's too dangerous for the modern world. Not only could you blow out your own ear drum (or a sibling's), when the highly sprung die-cast innards of the machine cracked, or the outer plastic case cracked, usually from overenthusiastic reloading, you could slice open your hand or put out an eye.

The modern "safe" version just isn't the same...

We found some plastic balls that just fit into that funnel...

I loved that thing! I had an Etch a Sketch too.

Good times.

Even if kids don't realize it right away.

My seventh grade math teacher filled her classroom with these sorts of toys.

Her style of teaching probably wouldn't be acceptable in todays "teach to the test" environment, but I'll bet few kids left her class "hating" math.

Aside from the normal stuff, she introduced me to Napier's bones. I'd stare and stare at those things, trying to figure out what sort of puzzle they were, and finally gathered up the nerve to ask her.



She also had a collection of simple mechanical calculators. I liked figuring out on my own how they worked.

My mom just wrote the times tables out on little sheets of paper and I had to memorize each one before I got the next sheet. She gave us quizzes.

and a buddy had a Wham-O Air Blaster.

Never talked my parents into letting me have a Spud Gun, though.

But it was some sort of cast metal. Bare. And, what worked even better than potato in it as ammo was coconut. Of course, I lived in Miami when I was a kid, so coconut was pretty plentiful.