Old Entry Reruns: The Nostalgia Room, Part Three

I have some favorite old entries from my old online diary that I had before coming to WordPress, and I thought it might be fun to share some of them here, as “reruns”. . .

This one was originally posted on October 15, 2008.  Be sure to see Part One and Part Two first.

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The Nostalgia Room
10/15/08
Part Three

So, as I mentioned earlier, Sister was cleaning out some things she had in storage (the weekend before I originally published this entry last September) and she gave me her Barbies.  Hers are circa 1960’s, and because of that, they would actually be better used in a little arrangement on a shelf in my Nostalgia Room than mine would have, if I still had them.

Sometimes when I was a kid, Sister would let me play with her Barbies, which was such a treat.  She had a house for them that was so incredibly amazing.  It wasn’t the Barbie house, it was a different brand, but again, the other brand was way cool.  It was made of cardboard and folded up into a neat box with a handle on top that made it easy to carry.  Sadly, a few years ago, she had to get rid of it because it was falling apart too badly to keep anymore, but before that, her daughter (who is now 22) played with it as well.  Fun times.  Man, wouldn’t I love to be able to buy one in such perfect condition like this on eBay.

Sister’s Ken doll always made us laugh.  Partly because of his blank facial expression and partly because when you shake him, his head rattles.  We used to call him Ken-with-the-beans-in-his-head.  (Hmm.  Something about that plastic look on his face makes me think that if he smiled, he might look a lot like Bob from the Enzyte commercial.  Who knew.)

Her Barbie had the cutest little potholder, which perfectly matched her snazzy housedress!  What housewife of the ’50’s wouldn’t love that?

I also loved her cookware and casserole/coffee pot set that looks like Corningware!  They looked just like our mother’s stuff.  She had drinking cups, too, but the orange juice didn’t come out of the orange ones.  And the toaster.  Oh my gosh, the toaster!  The little piece of toast actually pops up!  It comes out of the toaster, too, if you want to put it on a plate.  It may have originally come with two pieces of toast.

I always loved her Barbie suitcases.  They looked so “real”, I thought.  They always reminded me of the Bewitched Caldwell’s Soup episode where Sam is invisible as she packs her stuff and leaves after an argument with Darrin.  (Or maybe watching that scene always reminded me of Sister’s Barbie’s luggage?  I’m not sure which.)

The episode is on YouTube.  (The suitcase scene begins right around 13:46)

Yeah.  So.  After all that, my point, I guess, is that I do plan to have a Barbie display on a shelf in the office room whenever I do my retro-makeover.  Too bad I won’t have enough room to set up an entire Barbie house, if I could collect and/or make enough stuff.  That would be a fun project in itself.

Hmmm.  Maybe I can make room.

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Old Entry Reruns: The Nostalgia Room, Part Two

I have some favorite old entries from my old online diary that I had before coming to WordPress, and I thought it might be fun to share some of them here, as “reruns”. . .

This one was originally posted on October 15, 2008.  Be sure to see Part One first.

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The Nostalgia Room
10/15/08
Part Two

And now, here are some of my most cherished childhood memories.  (At this point, I should thank [and apologize to] the eBay sellers whose pictures I copied.)

This is Barbie’s Sweet 16.  She came with a little makeup case that had real blush in it that you could rub on her cheeks, and she smelled really pretty.  (I bought a candle once, about ten years ago, just because it smelled like her.)  Mattel made some outfits just for her.  I had this shorts and tank-shirt outfit as well as the ugly jumper and poncho set.  (The more pictures you look at in these entries, the more you will catch on that orange and yellow were big colors in girls’ toys in the 1970’s.)

If you can see the picture of the shorts-and-tank-top outfit clearly, you might be able to see the little “dimples” in the plastic packaging.  They are about the right size for a child’s index finger to fit almost up to the first knuckle.  They are also, interestingly, the perfect size for a Barbie drinking cup!  I am extremely blessed to have parents who are both thoughtful and creative.  They sat and cut out a bunch of those dimples from Barbie clothes packaging one year, either at Christmas time or my birthday – I’m not sure – and made me a set of glasses for Barbie.  But they didn’t stop there.  They (and possibly Sister too – she doesn’t remember for sure) melted some orange crayons and some white crayons and filled the cups with orange juice and milk!  Once the wax hardened, it would pop out of the glasses if I wanted to pretend that Barbie was drinking water.  While they were melting the wax, they melted some yellow, and made some tiny fried eggs with the white and yellow.  I wish I still had them so I could take a picture.  They were so cute, and some of my friends were jealous.

Mod Hair Ken.  *Sigh*.  He was awesome.  He had glue-on sideburns and facial hair.  How cool is that?  Once I saw the commercial for him, I made sure to request him for whatever the next gift-giving holiday was, and then to remind Mom periodically, just in case she may have forgotten (I was considerate, that way).  I thought I just would not survive without him.  I think I even added on to my prayers a couple nights, “. . . and please send me a Mod Hair Ken.  Thank you.  I’ll be good.  Amen.”  (I kind of combined God and Santa Claus in my mind.  And maybe that’s something for another entry as well.)

One day, I was sick, and Mom took me to the doctor and I think I had to get a shot – I don’t quite remember the details, other than that I was really sick.  When we got home, she put me back to bed and then came back into my room and surprised me with . . . drumroll . . .  a Mod Hair Ken!  I think he was supposed to be my Christmas or birthday present that year (again, I don’t remember what time of year it was), but she gave him to me early so I’d have something fun to keep me occupied while I was sick.  I was one happy kid, in spite of how sick I was.  I remember sitting up in bed and playing with his sideburns and “petting” his hair.  It felt (almost) sooo real!

This was the commercial:

This is the Miss America Walk Lively doll.  Mom ordered her through the mail, and it seems like it was an offer through some brand of cereal. She was one of my favorite “everyday” Barbies to play with.  I loved her face.  She was made so that if you lifted one arm, one of her legs would move, and if you lifted the other arm, the other leg would move, so you could make her walk by holding your hand behind her back and pushing her arms up, alternately, with your fingers.  I think she turned her head while she walked, too, if I remember right.

When I was about four or five, Mom and Dad bought Sister and me Dawn dolls for Christmas (if you follow that link and watch the slide show, check out the Sucrets box!  They were metal back then and made great containers for fashion doll shoes, purses, and other accessories.  I think there is still a Sucrets box in with my sister’s old Barbies, in fact).

At some point (I don’t remember if it was that same Christmas or not), they got both of us Dawn’s Apartments.  This consisted of a bedroom and a kitchen, for an efficiency apartment.  The kitchen came with a cute little orange drain rack and some yellow and orange plates, as well as light orange coffee cups.  Even though Dawn dolls are much smaller than Barbie dolls, I used my Dawn furniture for my Barbie dolls anyway.  Her and Ken’s legs hung over the bottom of the bed, and she had to bend way forward to reach into the sink, but hey, what’s imagination for if not to ignore things like this?

Sister just gave me her Barbie dolls and Dawn dolls this past weekend (the weekend before I originally posted the content of these entries).  I’ll write more about that later, but I was thrilled that she still had her Dawn dishes and drain rack, so I took pictures of them.

I used to keep my Barbie stuff set up all the time, in the corner of my bedroom.  I made them a “house” using album covers as walls (a little secret Sister taught me).  Besides the kitchen and bedroom, they also had a living room, complete with a couch Dad made out of wood and Mom stuffed and covered in a cute gingham-check pattern.  I made a TV out of a little box with a hole cut in it and a picture from a magazine taped to the inside so it showed through the hole.  I made a stereo, too, to look sort of like the one my parents had in the living room (the big piece of furniture stereo – remember them?) and drew in a turntable and knobs.  I made them magazines and a newspaper (complete with headlines) and they even had knick-knacks.

Sometimes I made a nursery and child’s bedroom too.  Well, yes, of course!  I had a baby and a whole little nursery set with a crib and a playpen (the little plastic open-weave containers that cherry tomatoes came in back then were perfect for a Barbie baby playpen) and high chair.  I had a small doll named Angie who had a baby doll, Tangie, and Angie was the older child.  (If you follow the link, Angie and Tangie are at the bottom of the page.  My sister had Tutti, pictured near the top of the page.  And gee, is it me or does Todd look a little like Chucky from Child’s Play?  Maybe from the beginning of the movie, when he was just a doll?  *Shudder*)

Barbie and Ken went to bed in their “house” every night when I went to bed and their vehicles were parked neatly outside their front door.

My Barbies had the dune buggy and pop-up camper, which was lots of fun (somewhere, Mom has a picture of me sitting in our front yard on Christmas day, playing “camping” with Barbie and Ken.  I’ll have to ask her where that is and scan a copy of it.)  The dune buggy doubled as their everyday car.

One of my friends had the Barbie RV camper, and after playing with it at her house, I decided I’d sure like one of those, too.  But, after checking out and comparing with the Big Jim camper (remember Big Jim, the macho-manly-man action figure?), we came to the conclusion that the Big Jim camper came with way better stuff, and it was brown, which was much more realistic, to me, than yellow and orange, and I liked things to be realistic whenever possible.

And so, bless Mom and Dad’s hearts, that was what they gave me for Christmas.  It came with a boat (mine was yellow – the one in the photo is orange), a fishing pole that snapped perfectly onto Ken’s hand, the fire and grate that covered it and the bucket and cookware (the pop-up camper came with the same fire and cookware items, but the cookware was orange), a lantern, sleeping bags and folding chairs.  The yellow sleeping bags and orange-and-yellow chairs in the photo of all the accessories look like the ones that came with the pop-up camper too.  The tan sleeping bag in the second picture looks more like what came with the Big Jim camper.  Maybe the kid who originally owned the set in that third picture had both sets, too.  One of my favorite accessories, however, was the rappeller.  Ken’s wrists snapped into it and it slid along a string.  I used to make him rappel all over my room.  The girly Barbie camper sure didn’t come with one of those!

Coming Soon . . . Part Three with Sister’s Barbies!

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Old Entry Reruns: The Nostalgia Room, Part One

I have some favorite old entries from my old online diary that I had before coming to WordPress, and I thought it might be fun to share some of them here, as “reruns”. . .

This one was originally posted on October 15, 2008.  I’ve made just a few minor changes for clarification.  It was published as one entry, but at over 2800 words, I thought it might be nicer to split it into a few entries.  This might also qualify as a Bliss List entry as well, since looking at some of these pictures and thinking of my old childhood toys does bring a smile to my face.

Part of me kinda hopes I’ll spur a little trend in blogland, of looking up photos of our favorite childhood toys and writing about them.  :-)

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The Nostalgia Room
10/15/08
Part One

It all started with a Bewitched lunchbox.

A few years ago, a friend gave me a Bewitched lunchbox for my birthday (I’m a huge Bewitched fan).  I got the idea, since my office room was never decorated in a “theme” (I’m big on themes for each room), to decorate it in a “Classic TV” theme.  I envisioned TV posters and memorabilia from my favorite classic TV shows, and decided to go with the 1950’s and 1960’s (minus most of the “groovy psychedelic” stuff) as my time frame, while still debating about including just a little bit of the 1970’s so that I could include other favorite shows like Three’s Company.

I started thinking it would be cool if I could find some curtains with one of the patterns that was popular in the 60’s (if you follow that link, I like the blue “galaxy” design best), and maybe one of those star wall clocks, and some knick-knacks from the time frame, maybe frame some magazine ads or old TV Guide covers.  (I used to collect TV Guides as a kid, and really regret getting rid of them when I was a teenager and thought they took up too much space – people are selling them on eBay and some of them go for not-bad money.  I’ve even been watching a couple of them from the time-frame of my novel series (late 1980’s to mid 1990’s), to use for reference to TV programming in some scenes.)  I envisioned finding an old TV cabinet and asking my dad if he could put a regular TV inside it to make it look like the old type.  I’d like to find an old metal desk, like you see on the TV shows from the ’60’s (that taupe color, or did they call it putty?), or maybe one of those retro-looking rolltop computer desks to hide the computer when I’m not using it.  Depending on what items I finally decide on and how much space I have to work with based on that, maybe I could find a nice side/easy chair with one of those kidney-shaped end tables and a lamp that looks like it’s from the right time period.

This could take years to do, of course, because money is the biggest issue, but it could be a fun hobby-project-in-progress over those years.

Sister gave me a photo frame she found at a thrift shop.  It’s decorated like a 50’s diner, and I got to thinking how cool it would be if I could find an ice-cream table and chairs to put in the corner, and decorate the corner like a diner.  Sort of “Route 66″.  Maybe a Coca-Cola sign, one of the old-fashioned napkin holders, and maybe one of those AM/FM radios that are made to look like the old restaurant-booth juke boxes.  Or instead of an ice-cream table, maybe I could find a small table with one of those Formica tops with that boomerang design.  That would go better with the restaurant-booth look.

I don’t feel a big need for things in the room to be authentic antiques from the actual time period; I can’t afford that anyway, and the whole point is just to create that feeling that I get when I watch my favorite old shows.  As much as I love technology and many other aspects of living in this time (equality, access to information, etc.), I also feel such a tug in my heart for those simpler times.  Maybe it’s because I was a kid in the ’60’s and ’70’s (and a sheltered kid at that), but it just seems that life was so much more innocent then.  (Strangers were nicer to each other and didn’t have the overblown sense of entitlement at the expense of everyone else that I see so often now.  Customer Service meant talking to real people.  Children weren’t bombarded with TV shows and ads with overtly sexual messages.  Things like that.)  I guess for every step forward, there has to be a letting-go of something else.  But that is maybe a topic for another entry, some other day.

So here and there, I’ve been collecting some knick-knack items I’ve found inexpensively on eBay over the last year or so.  Once I decided for sure that I wanted to go ahead and include a touch of the ’70’s too, I thought about what a shame it is that I don’t have my old Barbie dolls anymore.  (Long story short: in a moment of frustration and caving in to outside pressure back in 1991, I got rid of a lot of things that I wish I hadn’t.)  I thought that if I still had my old dolls, I could make a little arrangement of them on a shelf, dressed in their 1970’s clothes.  I began to search eBay for some of the Barbie dolls I had as a kid, and that was when it finally dawned on me that in creating this “theme room”, I was really attempting to recreate my childhood.  That’s a big realization.

Now, over the years, since I got rid of my stuff, I had several dreams about these dolls.  In the dreams, I always found myself back in the house where we lived during the years I played with my Barbie dolls, and I would always go and look in my bedroom closet, and there they would be!  I’d be so happy to have them back, like old friends, only to wake up and realize I was dreaming.  I know this sounds kind of nuts for a woman in her 40’s to be reminiscing to this degree about childhood toys – even dreaming about them – but I think now that it has to do with something from those years that I’m trying to recreate and process.  That’s another entry for another time (or not), but since I found all these pictures on eBay and decided to write this diary entry (a year or so ago – it’s taken me awhile to be ready to actually write it), I haven’t had one of those dreams.  It seems that doing all that searching and poring over the pictures and having all those “Oh, yeah, I remember this-and-that . . .” moments was good for me.

Coming Soon . . . Part Two with Barbie Pictures!

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