Toy Soldiers.
I was out last night having a drink, and I noticed that someone had bought and scattered around a few packages of those little molded plastic soldiers, cowboys and indians. You've seen the toys I'm talking about- they are about two inches high, and come in clear plastic bags of 25-50. There are always several different positions in each bag. The Army men in a particular set are always the same color... either some variation of green, tan or brown. Usually the cowboy and indians came in multiple (often bright) colors.t.
When I was young, these were some of my favorite toys. I had literally hundreds and hundreds of them. I had a civil war set, with the opposing sides designated by their gray and blue colors. I had American soldiers with WWI, WWII and Vietnam gear. There were medieval sets, with knights on horseback and archers. Along with the more common cowboy and indian sets, I had another from the "Wild West" in which each individual piece was unique. The details and realistic character of those figures made them perhaps my absolute favorites. I even had a strange alien set, with robots and monsters and astronauts. Along with the 50's-style kitschy sci-fi figures, there was also a sexy woman alien type- those were the only females in my entire collection. For truly this was a tiny world of men.
I would have to assume that the vast majority of children that played with these toys were boys. Among my friends they were ubiquitous. In the larger scheme though, they were just one step in the evolution of war playthings- from the hand-painted tin soldiers that our parents and grandparents played with to the fancy, articulated-limb action figures that dominate the market today. I loved them because they were cheap in quantity. For the same amount of money that a Star Wars figure cost, I could get 25-50 of these little men. Obviously you can still buy them today. But you have to get them at the dollar store, or wherever else cheap toys are sold. Somehow they don't seem to be as well-made as they were in the seventies. The details are muted, and they aren't as durable. Some packs are updated for our contemporary times. The most fascinating ones at the bar last night were 9-11 heroes that I had never seen before.
As far as I remember there were two main approaches to playing with these toys. My neighbor across the street used to set them up in a sand pit and launch fireworks at them. His was a very destructive play. He liked to melt them with fire and mutilate them in whatever manner he could devise. I was much more careful with my things. I would set them up in dioramas, and marvel at their legions and formations. I also recall taking a comforter and lumping it into a mass on my bed to construct a temporary mountain battle stage. I would split up the figures and wage elaborate trench and hill warfare. I would demarcate a "hero" by tearing up a little piece of masking tape and sticking it around a leg like a bandage. Occasionally I would create a surreal rift in time, and pit a band of sword-bearing knights against the bazooka-wielding modern men-of-war. That usually ended up in a bloody rout. At other times I would simply set up all the sets in random patterns on the dining room table. The challenge was to see if I could get all of them to stand up at once in the confined space.
Even though I recall these toys with nostalgia, I don't know if I would let my own kids play with them. For one thing, M. is fiercely anti-war and doesn't believe in letting children play "soldier". While it's true that I got into a lot of depth with my pretend scenarios (I spent a lot of time making the individual pieces interact with each other, and the outbursts of bloodletting were parcelled out gradually), I can understand her concerns. Although I wasn't as mercilessly violent with those toys as other kids, I do see how they fit into a progression in my imaginative development. By the time I was a young teen I was dressing up in surplus military clothing and waging BB-gun wars with my friends in the woods. We didn't develop a perspective that saw war as costly, ruinous, and/or emotionally devastating. But I suppose they are appropriate in a bar- a natural home for grizzled veterans.
When I was young, these were some of my favorite toys. I had literally hundreds and hundreds of them. I had a civil war set, with the opposing sides designated by their gray and blue colors. I had American soldiers with WWI, WWII and Vietnam gear. There were medieval sets, with knights on horseback and archers. Along with the more common cowboy and indian sets, I had another from the "Wild West" in which each individual piece was unique. The details and realistic character of those figures made them perhaps my absolute favorites. I even had a strange alien set, with robots and monsters and astronauts. Along with the 50's-style kitschy sci-fi figures, there was also a sexy woman alien type- those were the only females in my entire collection. For truly this was a tiny world of men.
I would have to assume that the vast majority of children that played with these toys were boys. Among my friends they were ubiquitous. In the larger scheme though, they were just one step in the evolution of war playthings- from the hand-painted tin soldiers that our parents and grandparents played with to the fancy, articulated-limb action figures that dominate the market today. I loved them because they were cheap in quantity. For the same amount of money that a Star Wars figure cost, I could get 25-50 of these little men. Obviously you can still buy them today. But you have to get them at the dollar store, or wherever else cheap toys are sold. Somehow they don't seem to be as well-made as they were in the seventies. The details are muted, and they aren't as durable. Some packs are updated for our contemporary times. The most fascinating ones at the bar last night were 9-11 heroes that I had never seen before.
As far as I remember there were two main approaches to playing with these toys. My neighbor across the street used to set them up in a sand pit and launch fireworks at them. His was a very destructive play. He liked to melt them with fire and mutilate them in whatever manner he could devise. I was much more careful with my things. I would set them up in dioramas, and marvel at their legions and formations. I also recall taking a comforter and lumping it into a mass on my bed to construct a temporary mountain battle stage. I would split up the figures and wage elaborate trench and hill warfare. I would demarcate a "hero" by tearing up a little piece of masking tape and sticking it around a leg like a bandage. Occasionally I would create a surreal rift in time, and pit a band of sword-bearing knights against the bazooka-wielding modern men-of-war. That usually ended up in a bloody rout. At other times I would simply set up all the sets in random patterns on the dining room table. The challenge was to see if I could get all of them to stand up at once in the confined space.
Even though I recall these toys with nostalgia, I don't know if I would let my own kids play with them. For one thing, M. is fiercely anti-war and doesn't believe in letting children play "soldier". While it's true that I got into a lot of depth with my pretend scenarios (I spent a lot of time making the individual pieces interact with each other, and the outbursts of bloodletting were parcelled out gradually), I can understand her concerns. Although I wasn't as mercilessly violent with those toys as other kids, I do see how they fit into a progression in my imaginative development. By the time I was a young teen I was dressing up in surplus military clothing and waging BB-gun wars with my friends in the woods. We didn't develop a perspective that saw war as costly, ruinous, and/or emotionally devastating. But I suppose they are appropriate in a bar- a natural home for grizzled veterans.
Labels: Fatherhood, Militarism
posted by Merge Divide at 5:46 PM
3 Comments:
Toy soldiers were my favorite of all toys growing up. Some were made of plastic, some of rubber The rubber ones were the quality guys. I must have had hundreds of them. I had them having battles all over the house. However, my favorite was to set up an encampment in the backyard garden, turn on the hose, and fight battles over rivers (we lived on a slight hill). When my parents weren't home, I sometimes set the popsicle bridges on fire.
My favorite pastime was playing a soldier in mock war games down at "the prarie". Not really a prarie, it was an unused peice of land about one block by half a block, with "forest" (a bunch of tres), mountains (earth mounds) and foxholes (small depressions where we hid under the prarie grass to mount surprise ambushes).
Those were the days. However, I never joined the military, or shot at anything living in my life, save a couple of rats with my 22 in a quarry (good feeling) and a bird sitting in a tree with a BB gun (very bad feeling). Playing soldier, playing with soldiers, and playing with guns were simply what we did. Then again, we didn't have violent video games (or any video games for that matter)to pattern our activities after.
I wish I had kept all those soldiers. The only ones I have are small tin toys given to me by the widow of a neighbor who used to let me play with them at their house. Good memories.
It'd be great to see photos of your old setups. I can't ven visualize the rubber soldiers you talk about.
I never remember you saying anything about shooting rats with a 22 in a quarry. That's a bit surprising.
Photos? Well, I don't remember anyone taking photos. The rubber soldiers were like the molded plastic soldiers, only made of rubber, so they were more pliable and as I recall, more realistic. My favorite ones were in the lying down pose, rifles barrels on an inverted "v" stand.
As for shooting at rats, it may have been only one or two times. A bunch of us from the neighborhood used to go out to an old abandoned quarry and shoot down at anything we could get in our sights, mostly tin cans and lids. We also had a 12-gauge, which we tried there a few times. It's no wonder I have shoulder problems today. However, most of any shooting I did with with my brothers at a rod and gun club, only 22's, while my dad fished. I had a single shot I paid about $18.98 for at the time. I was jealous of my brothers, who both had clips and telescopic sights. Come to think of it, I still have mine in storage.
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