When I was a child, about six years old, I used to walk to and from primary school. I remember that on one cold, gray winter day, I lost a toy in the snow. I must have dropped it on my way home from school that afternoon. The toy was a small wind-up bathtub toy, a cheerful little green frog that would flick its green paddle feet and swim along for a minute or two.
The part that has stayed with me all these years is how sad I was when my mother and I went searching for the wayward frog but found only one little green foot in the intersection just before the school, raggedly amputated when a car had run over the toy. Previously, I was not particularly attached to the plastic frog, but after its obvious destruction I was inconsolable.
Fortunately, in the early 1970s, children must have had longer attention spans, because we were able to find the identical toy at the local department store the following weekend. I had owned that toy for several years. Today, a given line of toys is likely to fall out of favor after a single season and is quickly replaced by the latest fad. You would have a hard time replacing a lost toy today.
Discover more from PARTICLESHOCK
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.