They just don’t make em like they used to.

A few days ago, I was talking to my sister. We were laughing about how simple toys used to be. She said that when she has kids she’s going to get them Lincoln logs. I thought that was a bit of an extreme idea, but now I’m not so sure.
This morning, I went to physical therapy with my son. Two of my other kids were with me, so the therapist got some toys for them to play with while the baby did his exercises and we talked about his progress. I saw some big leggos and a princess castle and then I saw something that I hadn’t seen since I was a little kid, which probably dates me for sure.
The moon and sun beamed at me behind the clear plastic. Then there were the numbers and the plastic hands and the printed illustration of the school children and teacher at the base. All against a red painted wooden backdrop. It was almost unreal.
Life was a whole lot simpler the last time I saw a clock like that. I lived in a beautiful two story red brick house in a suburb in Michigan and my father was working at General Motors and my mom was Betty Crocker and my grandmothers were still alive and the only thing I had to do was fix my bed, wash my face, brush my teeth and get dressed when I got up. One bunny ear. Two bunny ears….
The house was burned down, the plant has been demolished, my grandmothers are a vague memory, and I’ll be running through the cul de sac when my son remembers to do those things, but how could all of that come flooding back to my mind with a simple, WOODEN toy made in East Aurora, New York? A toy made in the United States of America by somebody with a real pension… Remember those? Remember anything made in America? I do, but moving on…
I had so much fun just lining up the numbers and winding up the clock. I know it wasn’t electronic or internet enabled, but I just wound it up and when it stop, I wound it up again. When I got tired of that, I went outside or played with a doll or got into a heated argument with my male cousin (who I happened to be two months older than, by the way, and you know I lorded it over him, right?) who insisted that there were some things girls just couldn’t do. Hmph.
I’m glad that my kids can operate a computer (even the 21 month old *sigh*), but some of those simpler toys just made a kid use more of himself than a computer demands, and that was a good thing. Does an America with disposable employees create higher quality goods or just cheaper ones? Oh well, at the risk of sounding old, there are some things that they just don’t make like they used to.