What little girl in the early 60's didn't want an Easy-Bake Oven? If Santa was kind enough to bring you this amazing item for Christmas you could whip up a chocolate cake for the family in about 30 minutes! The heat source was a simple light bulb and the worst disaster that could befall a junior chef was to have the bulb blow before your cupcakes were done. Younger brothers and sisters could usually be recruited to sample the culinary creations to insure they were edible. A queezy or vomitting sibling was an indication that you were not exactly Betty Crocker material.

"You take the farm, we mail the ants."
That was the slogan used for Uncle Milton's Ant Farm. This "educational" toy was a good substitute for the various wild bugs and creatures that we seemed to bring into the house as kids. If your mother saw that you had a tendency to exterminate creepy-crawlers on the sidewalks and in the gutters, she was wise to bring this toy home. It gave us a chance to appreciate the work-ethic of the lowly ant. The army of ants would tunnel through sand inside the "non-breakable" farm. It was not, however, sibling-proof and a curious brother would sometimes get the urge to "free the ants". If this happened your Mom usually called a halt to this thrilling entomology lesson and sucked up the ants in her Hoover vacuum cleaner!

In the sexist 60's, Erector Sets were almost always given to boys. Kids who liked to take their father's heirloom pocket watches apart to see how they worked or those with a penchant for building sky-scrapers out of Mom's crystal glasses and fine china bowls were often given this toy. It offered a less expensive and less destructive way of building strange looking objects with moveable parts. Another appealing aspect of this toy was the number of parts that came in the box. Kids loved them! Parents were left to curse the day that they purchased the Set, especially if they stepped on a run-away part in their bare feet in the middle of the night.

Hasbro Toy Company had a real hit on their hands when they introduced G.I.Joe to the toy market in 1964. This macho action figure and all the paraphernalia that accompanied it was high on a boy's Christmas or Hanukkah list. Joe came in several incarnations including soldier, marine, sailor and a pilot. G.I. Joe could often be found in the family bathtub filled with Mom's prized house plants and rocks from the driveway. These easily-obtainable objects provided the necessary props for a misty jungle or murky lagoon where Joe could undertake his "secret" missions. G.I. Joe could also be used as a stand in at you sister's doll parties if Barbie was facing a "quickie" wedding and Ken had been eaten by the family German Shepard!!

The Magic 8 Ball was like a smaller and more portable Ouija Board which was also popular when we were kids. You could ask the 8 Ball any number of questions which could be answered with elaborations of Yes or No. It didn't need any batteries and it was too big to choke on so your two year old sister could play with it when you weren't looking. You could ponder important questions like, "Will I marry Davey Jones when I'm 18?" and if your karma was good the ball might answer, "Signs Point to Yes". I would frequently ask the Ball if Gary Newhouse or Glenn Beach would ask me to dance at Teen Club. If it was not to be the Ball could be brutally honest by answering, "My Reply is NO"! The Magic 8 Ball usually only remained intact until your wisen-heimer brother smashed it to bits with his baseball bat to see what the blue liquid inside was made of.

A box of good old-fashioned Lincoln Logs was the toy you got when you REALLY wanted an Erector Set. Less elaborate and harder to lose, the logs provided the basic "building blocks" for horse barns, Indian camps and dream mansions. The Logs came in several different lengths and in later years were accompanied by wheels, chimneys and bricks. This was the toy that you handed down to your little brothers and sisters. By the time the youngest had a chance to play with them, the Logs looked more like recycled match-sticks.

I can remember getting this "group" toy during the long-hot summer of 1965. This was the toy that forced you to "play nice" with your siblings...learning to take turns and cooperate. The object was to build a contraption which would ensnarl the little varment in a bell-shaped cage. You got to add pieces of the elaborate mousetrap by landing on certain spaces on the game board. The crazy contraption was made up of silly parts that in the end worked like dominos to set off the chain-reaction meant to drop the cage on the mouse. For some reason this game brought out the worst in us kids and someone would usually end up throwing a vital part across the room in a fit of frustration. If you couldn't find the discarded part, the game usually ended and you bugged your Mom to take you to the Andrews A.F.B. pool.

Sea Monkeys were first introduced to kids in about 1960. I remember seeing advertisements for these strange creatures in the back of my brother's comic books. You could purchase a package of un-born sea monkeys and after adding water in a container, the wierd looking litle monkeys would come to life. In actuallity, the sea monkeys were brine shrimp. I think my mother axed the idea of buying sea-monkeys after the Ant-Farm disaster. Lord knows she didn't want monkeys hanging from the rafters or showing up during a cocktail party!!

Ah yes....the Troll! Now this was a "toy" that could turn the average 12 year old into a true collector!! Owning one Troll was like eating only one potato chip....it was never satisfying enough. My best friend Val's mother used to say that the Troll had a face that only a pre-teen could love. Trolls came in all sizes and with various colors and lengths of "hair". Looking at them today I can't help but be reminded of the promoter Don King! Val and I would make clothes for these little creatures out of felt squares we bought at Woolworth's. When stripped of their outfits, Trolls appeared to be sex-less. They had protruding bellies and cute belly-buttons!! I have no clue what happened to the Troll family that we created which must have numbered in the 50 or 60 range. When we finally outgrew them at about age 16, I think they all packed up and moved to Oregon to start their own cult-like society!