These days, a trip to the toy store may well lighten your wallet by a hundred bucks or more. When I was a lad, and Dad's payday rolled around, we often made a trip to a hobby store--where I was allowed a few dollars allowance for a model of my choice. It's a more amazing tale, though, to go back to Dad's day and see what kind of amusements were available to young folks in the deep dark days of America's Depression.

The 1930's were a rough time. The bottom had fallen out of the American economy, and the nation was in a horrific economic depression. Children back then made do with some surprising innovations. Perhaps there are some lessons from that era for us today? Although Dad did not grow up in Lakewood, many of his experiences will certainly be similar to others who did so.

I'll let Dad take up the tale from here:

Hi, I'm Bob Rice, and I'm a retired Lakewood teacher. I was born in 1920. My mother was a housewife, and my father was an interior decorator. In the 1920's, times were pretty good. My parents bought me a brand-new Lionel electric train with two cars for only $9.50, as well as a nice airplane model of Lindbergh's "Spirit of St. Louis" that I built back then. You can see those toys in the picture. As a matter of fact, Lindbergh and my own father were born on the same date, although not in the same year.

In 1929, the Depression started. Thousands of people lost their savings and their homes and had to adjust to hard times. For us kids, though? We had just as much fun as we did before. We just had to be creative! When I later lost the nuts and bolts to my "Spirit of St. Louis" plane, for example, I had to keep it together with wire.

We had to come up with our own ideas about toys back then. There was plenty of time for adventure in the woods behind my home. I used those woods as a source for wood, when an old man taught me how to whittle objects out of wood, coal, and soap. I carved a wooden hatchet and a bullroarer. These you can also see in the photograph. A bullroarer was a Native American toy that you whirled around your head and it made a roaring sound. We also made wooden whistles, tops, and fifes.

During our many trips to the sand bank, we would collect white clay from between the layers of sandstone and make Native American-type cups and bowls from it. Also, we often made toy tractors by notching thread spools and attaching matches on the sides, connected through the hole with a rubber band. One longer match served as a wind-up to make the tractor go.

Blow guns were very popular at the time. These were made by using a metal coathanger to punch out the center of a piece of elderberry branch and using beans, small stones, etc., for ammunition.

Pitching horseshoes was a great sport of the day. Everyone who had space took pride in having a pit. Some were dirt, some were clay, some were boxed in, and all were 40 feet apart at the stakes. Genuine horseshoes were the shoes of the day. Later, regulation shoes came in. Throwing target knives was also a popular sport; these knives had blades heavier than their handles. We also played a similar game using jack knives called "mumbly-pegs."

It was fun to make slingshots too. While on trips through the woods, we would search until we found a perfect "Y" from a tree limb for the handle. Strips from a rubber inner tube were looped over the top two ends of the "Y" and bound with twine. This rubber band was also equipped with a leather pad to hold the stone missles.

Another type of slingshot was made from two long leather thongs attached to a leather pad, and whirled in a circle above the head. Both were fun to use and quite accurate, with daily practice.

Winter always presented lots of snow-related activities. Most everyone competed in making the best go-devil. We all looked for an undamaged barrel stave for the runner. This had to be carefully sanded and waxed with paraffin. A sturdy upright board was attached about two-thirds back on the barrel stave, having a seat attached on top. Two braces for the bottom, and two for the top, added further support to the device. The seat often had carved hand grips on either side. The fancy ones often had a padded seat. You just hopped on it at the top of a hill and held on!

Making, designing, and flying kites was a big thing in the summer time. Once the design of the kite was worked out, the covering was usually made of tissue or newspaper glued to the frame. The length of the tail was crucial to good flying. The length was determined by the type of kite. We made tails by tearing up old sheets or other light cotton material.

Throwing darts also became quite an interesting and skillful sport for awhile. A common pin was burned into one end of a wooden match, while cardboard fins were attached to the other end. Hours were spent designing and making various forms of darts in order to achieve greater accuracy.

Painting glass bottles became quite a fad. All that was needed was a bucket of cold water, some tubes of oil paint, and a bottle or two. Drops of oil paint were placed on top of the water, and the bottle was inserted and then twisted as it was taken straight out of the bucket of water. The oil paint stuck to the glass, it was left to dry, and a beautiful glass object was the result. We sold these bottles in order to have a little spending money in those hard times. I was glad that my father was a painter, because we often had paint available for this activity!

We also made other toys like puzzles, boats, and hickory bows and arrows. One object that we had fun with was called a snake-stick. This was little more than an elderberry stick with a wire loop at the end of it. Snake hunting was fun but highly dangerous. We had high boots with knife pockets to protect ourselves from a snakebite.

Good times or bad, children will indeed find ways to amuse themselves.

Gary here again. I want to thank my dad for these great memories from his childhood. I would like to encourage all of you to ask your parents and grandparents how it was many years ago. All these tales will add volumes to the rich tapestry of our times, and to the pulse of the city.