The Wooden Blocks

It wouldn't surprise anyone who knows me well to discover that I have a love of toys.  When my son was a little kid I got him almost every kind of toy that was available for kids. We had barrels of monkeys, play keys, play cars, farms, stuffed animals, writing things, spinning things, robots, monsters. Lots and lots of books supplemented by library trips. We had blocks, lots of kinds of blocks.

I knew that my son had a giant tub of his Legos in the basement of his house.  We sold him our house and left some of his toys behind for him.  Lately he brought up a tub to show me.  It was a tub of wooden blocks and little monsters.  Some of the blocks were plane wood and some were colored.  I was surprised to see them.  A good many of those blocks were acquired when he was his son's age when we lived in Japan.  That was nearly 40 years ago.  It took me back.

The funny thing was, as soon as my son showed me the blocks, his son immediately wanted to build things.  He stacked up a tower.  The triangle blocks found their place at the top.  I hope they let him play with them again.  It took me back to another little boy who played blocks endlessly.

One story I remember with those very blocks was, my son and I liked to play together.  We often built towers in tandem.  I build one and he built one side by side.  A favorite game was that my son liked to knock over my block tower and laugh.  Once, and only once, after he knocked my tower down, I knocked his tower down.  He lost it.  It made him so angry he screamed and ran around the house like a crazy man.  I had to let him calm down, there was no reasoning with him.  I never tried that again.  But I was mindful that my only child lacked certain social skills and I tried to find opportunities to teach him things like what to do when someone knocks your tower down.  I think I did okay because I haven't seen him throw any fits like that these days.

I hope that the grandchildren have lots of fun with those old blocks.  They are a lot of fun.  But, I don't plan to knock over anyone else's tower any time soon.