Not exactly a holiday gift but…
Fellow genealogist Jane E. Wilcox of New York posted a link to it this week on Facebook.
It may be one of the best articles of all time — the article entitled “The 5 Best Toys of All Time,” written back in 2011.1
And oh boy did it resonate with The Legal Genealogist.
All five of those toys… and especially the last one.
And the toys are:
• Stick
• Box
• String
• Cardboard Tube
• Dirt
Dirt.
Oh, yeah.
Dirt.
Now to set the stage for just how this resonated, I have to show you the conditions under which the memories evoked by this piece took place.
Yeah, that’s me, on the right, with the dirty face. Dirtier by far than my older sister Diana on the left who appears to be regarding me with some degree of amusement. Both of us reveling in summer heat and the shirts-optional status that being under the age of five accords even to girls.
Now… look at the dirt we’re sitting in.2
There around the farmhouse at my grandparents’ farm in Virginia where we spent our summers, the dirt was soft and fine and, in the absence of rain, dry and dusty.
And we used it as a toy all the time. In a very particular way.
The equipment needed was simple:
• One Coke bottle. Pepsi would do. But it had to be a bottle, not a can.3 And it had to be dry on the inside. Which meant that the contents had to have been consumed at least a day or two earlier. And it helped to rinse the bottle out — after consuming the contents, of course — so there was no sticky residue at all.
• One piece of window screen at least 4×4 inches square. Window screens at the farm, you understand, were not fixed items that were swapped out for storm windows. The screens didn’t even have their own frames. They were cut from large rolls and then stapled around the outside of the window.4 So there were always scraps of window screens around.
• Dirt. Dry and dusty.
And the directions for using that equipment were equally simple:
• Put the piece of screen over the top of the bottle.
• Scoop up dry dirt and strain it into the bottle through the screen.
• When the bottle is full, remove the piece of screen.
And now you’re ready.
Ready for what, you may ask?
For one of the most fun things a kid can do with this one of the five best toys of all time.
Find a bunch of cousins, stand in the middle…
And, holding the bottle straight out as far as you can reach, twirl around at the highest speed you can manage — coating everybody in reach with the finely strained dusty dirt from your bottle.
Repeat as often as you can get away with it.
Dirt.
Absolutely one of the five best toys of all time.
Maybe even the single best toy ever.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Best toy ever,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 14 Dec 2019).
SOURCES
- Jonathan H. Liu, “The 5 Best Toys of All Time,” Wired.com, posted 31 Jan 2011, cited by Jane E. Wilcox, Facebook status update, 11 Dec 2019). ↩
- I thought about saying “wallowing in” — but the photo does speak for itself… ↩
- In my experience at the time, cans were for beer. Soft drinks came in bottles. ↩
- Assuming anybody bothered for that particular window. ↩
judy, loved this. Our soil was not dusty enough for this game. We jumped off the shed roof into the chicken run. We needed a bath afterwards too. Fran
Excellent blog post, Judy and it definitely brings back memories. Except in our case, we had a creek near our house and we spent many an hour in the mud and water, building dams, catching crawdads and frogs, etc. I don’t recall any close encounters with snakes – if that had happened, I probably would have never gone back. To the list of best toys, I’d add cardboard box – like the kind a refrigerator or washing machine come in. Those were loads of fun.
Box is on the list — it’s #2!
I saw that article, too, and was surprised the author left out water. I guess it’s hard to give water as a gift, but show me a kid (or an adult) who doesn’t like to play with it or in it.
The author might have needed a longer list… 🙂
Glorious! I vote for though. We were young parents and short on cash we scrounged 3 appliance boxes and built a fort/castle. Duct tape and paint were the only expense. It lasted years!! We’ve repeated the process with grandkids.
We had boxes mostly at home — there were waaaaaaay too many cousins at the Farm to be able to share boxes and not end up in fights. But there was plenty of dirt!!
Dirt was one of my favorite childhood toys. We lived in a Philadelphia Twin row house with a small yard. One summer day my sister and I decided to enlist the neighborhood kids and “dig a hole to China.” We dug about a three foot deep hole then just left it, proud of our effort. Fast forward to Dad coming home late and deciding to bring material in through the back of the house. You guessed it…Dad fell in the hole. Amazing he didn’t break his neck. We thought he’d be mad but he was impressed we didn’t hit a utility line. Then he came out and helped him fill in the hole.
Great dirt memory!!
That is a great memory! (If that had been my father, I’d have been dead.)
Dirt, a bucket, a stick, and water. I made mud soup regularly. The 5th ingredient was a young and willing cousin to taste test. Usually followed by panicked squawks from concerned aunties n uncles. Spoilsports.
Aww Dirt! When I was a preschooler my Mother and I lived out in the country with my Mother’s parents while my Father was on TDY in the Air Force. The farm house was up off the ground on blocks. It was cool, and dirty, under the house. I had a stick too. There were Doodle Bugs under that house and there was a way to call them. I would push the stick into a Doodle Bug hole, twist it and call the bugs, “Doodle Bug, Doodle Bug come out and play.” I have actually forgotten the chant but it was something like that. Sure enough, the bugs would come out to my great joy! Mother always dressed me in short dresses so, after calling Doodle Bugs, my panties were black with dirt – Lol! It was almost worth the bath!
Love this!
I tried to share it to FB, and ran into their “community standards’ block 😉
Oh, dear. Nudity! And nipples not involved in breast-feeding! lol
I apparently have my first strike 🙂
Yeah, first class ridiculous at FB, isn’t it?
CONGRATULATIONS! Your blog has been included in INTERESTING BLOGS in FRIDAY FOSSICKING at
https://thatmomentintime-crissouli.blogspot.com/2019/12/friday-fossicking-20th-dec-2019.html
Thank you, Chris
Great memories of mud pies and digging to China… our Uncle convinced us we could. Mum wasn’t too happy with the great hole in the chook pen… though the chooks loved it.. a great dust bath!