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Friday, December 17, 2010
Toys R'n't Us
WHEN KIDS WERE JUST KIDS, NOT EFFING WUNDERKIND. I'm old. I admit it. I have a grandson, though. And so I went to Toys'R'Us last weekend looking for something specific: slot cars. Every young boy deserves that smell of ozone and the controller in his hand that makes an actual racecar speed around the track, succeeding or failing based on his throttle decisions.
Problem? Toys'R'Us doesn't have slot cars. Doesn't have trains. Doesn't have anything but plasticky junk.
So I'm telling all you dads out there that you can still find the real stuff. I failed at the slot cars, but I found a real electric train for my grandson. Yet I'm thinking, maybe even you dads haven't had this experience or know how important it is. I'm going to risk offending you anyway. Slot cars and trains are about imagination, scale, and a kind of physicality no video game can provide.
I had Lionel trains and Lionel slot cars. There were slot car tracks with train crossing tracks embedded. I had an attic to build a layout in. I felt compelled to provide a landscape for them. I learned about Plaster of Paris, I turned cedar cuttings into forests eternalized by Krylon spray, I made lakes out of tinfoil, mountains out of mud, and buildings out of boxes, paper, and paint. I assembled model cars into props, learning about scale, and I wound up constructing a world, my own world, in the attic Not as good as this, but I was just a kid...
I've played my share of video games, but they're a cheat. They play to only two of the senses, and there's no act of creation involved.
My point is a small one. It's only for those of you who have young sons. Think about giving them a gift of electricity rather than electronics. There are wonderful worlds awaiting them here and here. The great romance of trains may be over in reality, but it can still live in a boy's mind, where the future grows.
