Have you ever experienced reading something, or being told something, and while you understand the words, thay have no meaning? The words do not conjure up anything in your mind – they are just words – sitting there, doing nothing, making no impression. 

There are concepts that elude me – the words describing them just sit there as individual words, each with its own meaning but the whole of them meaning nothing. Like mindfulness (a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique) – I have no idea what that is or how you are supposed to do that or why. 

Ashley posted about contemplative practices and I didn’t understand a word of it – I know what the words mean individually but as a whole, as a concept – just a blank. 

I don’t know if I have explained this very well or intelligibly but there it is.

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Toys.  Was it just me and that we were poor, or that I was a girl but – I don’t remember any store bought toys for girls in the late 1940’s and 1950’s aside from dolls – which I didn’t have because I didn’t like dolls. 

I had a bike, second-hand clamp on skates (not the fancy kind where the clamps came up over the whole toe of your shoe), jump rope cut from a piece of clothesline. Okay, Spaldeens were bought as were comic books (but are comic books considered toys?) and wait, I had a Duncan yoyo. 

My elder male sibling had Lincoln Logs, an erector set, a real baseball bat not a broomstick, a baseball mitt, probably a real basketball. My 7 years younger brother had a room full of toys but by the time he was 5 or so we were way less poor. 

There were board games, I remember Parcheesi and Chinese checkers (also Monopoly but I rarely played that, never liked the game) but I keep trying to remember if we, as a family owned those games or they belonged to some other kids. I think we had regular checkers and Dominoes but they weren’t mine in particular.

I don’t remember having crayons and coloring books at home, in school of course, crayons were part of your required school supplies. I remember my little brother had coloring books and crayons. Maybe because I was never into coloring? I never asked for them?  (I honestly don’t get the concept of coloring books – coloring someone elses picture? What for? What’s the point?)

Anyway, is there anyone my age who remembers store bought toys specifically for girls? And further, is there anyone my age who can tell me what kind of toys girls played with in those days besides jump ropes, jacks, and a Spaldeen?