{"id":1091,"date":"2017-12-21T21:07:42","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T21:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=1091"},"modified":"2018-01-17T16:56:48","modified_gmt":"2018-01-17T16:56:48","slug":"wagons-ho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=1091","title":{"rendered":"Wagons Ho"},"content":{"rendered":"

It goes without saying that things were different when I was growing up \u2014 with Christmas almost here, I was thinking about toys. When I was young, I had a lot of toys, but not compared to what the average kid has today. There were a number of reasons, but if you went to a toy store (I never remember being In a toy (only) store until I was an adult \u2014 toys were sold in other stores… some of the bigger ones had separate \u201ctoy\u201d departments) there wasn\u2019t the infinite variety of toys available today. There were dolls for girls and a few trucks\/cars for boys, although none of them looked \u201creal\u201d the way they do today. I also remember Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys and a few other building sets. After the war, Erector Sets became available, because all the metal wasn\u2019t being used for the war effort. And of course, there were games \u2014 not anywhere near the number available today and none were \u201celectronic\u201d \u2014 most were played on a board of some kind or with cards. We also often built our own toys, something that doesn\u2019t happen much today. I remember making little \u201ctractors\u201d out of empty thread spools and \u201crubber\u201d guns, that shot strips of rubber cut from old tire inner tubes…we made these “guns” out of wood that usually came from the grocery store when they threw out the wooden boxes that apples and oranges came in.<\/p>\n

As far as \u201cbigger\u201d toys went, there were no skateboards or rollerblades, or battery powered vehicles. If you were lucky, you probably had a bike, maybe a scooter and (boys especially) maybe had a wagon \u2014 which brings me to the real topic for today. I don\u2019t remember too much from my very early years, but I remember that when I was about 2 or 3 years old (I\u2019m guessing at the age based on a couple of old pictures I\u2019ve seen) my granddad made me a wagon. I think I remember him giving it to me and I remember playing with it. My granddad was a carpenter, not a \u201cwoodworker.\u201d I\u2019m sure the wagon wasn\u2019t a \u201cpolished\u201d product, but at 2 or 3 I don\u2019t think that made a difference to me.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, here it is a lot of years later and I\u2019m the grandad and my<\/em> grandson just turned 3. I don\u2019t know if modern kids play with wagons or even have wagons anymore… I don\u2019t remember seeing a kid with a wagon for a long time. Most things that kids seem to like today require batteries, have motors, talk, light up, fly or something cool like that. Wagons don\u2019t do much \u2014 they just kind of sit there, until you pull them… of course you can put \u201cstuff\u201d in them and haul it around \u2014 I think that\u2019s what I did, and I remember it being a lot of fun \u2014 today? Maybe not so much.<\/p>\n

But all that aside, I decided to build my<\/em> grandson a wagon. Not because he asked for one, but because I wanted to. A lot of years from now will he remember and want to build his grandson a wagon? Maybe, maybe not… but it doesn\u2019t matter. As long as he loves his grandson and does something with him \u2014 that\u2019s what its all about.
\n\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It goes without saying that things were different when I was growing up \u2014 with Christmas almost here, I was thinking about toys. When I was young, I had a lot of toys, but not compared to what the average … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1091"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1119,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091\/revisions\/1119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}