Recently, I spent a few hours going through my old toy box from my childhood. I found a number of curiosities (which I’ll share later), but I wanted to give my first impressions.

Above is the toybox my dad made for me so many years ago. It was a lot of fun, even going through and unpacking all the things inside.

Interestingly, all the way through, I was thinking about all of the connections I could make with people based on the things in the box. Finally sorting my Lego pieces so that S and I could download instructions (or use the classic instructions still in the box!) and make things together. Taking all of the various parts of games and toys and putting them up on this blog or on fb, to see if people could help me figure out what they were (thinking they might enjoy that challenge (and the nostalgia) too).

Perhaps most poignantly, I came across the numbers ‘1’, ‘2’, and ‘8’, written on tape, attached to Lego pieces. I think that they were part of that one time I brought the miniature city I had built[1] and was so proud of, and labeled parts of it. Anyways, I was going to use this as an excuse to ask my dad if he had any pictures of that, or other things I/we had built, so we could bond over that.

And perhaps I could bond a little with that child from so long ago. One of the things I found was a mint. S mentioned that young me was eating mints, and had somehow left one for me, some way of communicating across the decades.

One of the things I want to do there is to build again my favourite spaceship (it had three parts which were each their own ship!), and my favourite town set, the classic fire station.

Happily, it seems that most of (or at least a lot of) the space parts are still there. Sadly, it seems that many of the essential parts for the fire station are not present. It had a really cool slidy-up-and-down front door to each of the fire truck bays. Of the 46 pieces involved, I was only able to find about 10 of the grooves, and three of the roll-top-desk-like part things. But then I remembered the internet! So, brickinstructions.com has a parts list for the fire hall, and they link to Bricklink, where you can purchase the part! And not even that expensive! I love online communities.

Maybe I’ll connect with other people about this, too.

Here’s to connecting with ourselves from so long ago, and maybe helping us connect with ourselves and each other right now.

[1]It even included a hockey rink! With a swimming pool underneath, with real water in it! Lego is surprisingly water-tight. Or maybe there was a lining. I don’t remember. I just remember the paper rink surface getting wet. 😀