If a 50-year-old wooden toy chest could talk to a 5-year-old toy chest, what would it say? Would it reveal a lot about the children who stashed their toys inside it and who later abandoned it on the attic? A toy chests resurrection as a companion for those once-childrens children will unleash memories of toys long ago.
Remember the Old Toy Chest?
It was the era of black and white TV. Will Rogers, Hopalong, Dale Evans, and the Lone Ranger hugged the limelight. Manufacturers of wooden chests saw an opportunity and designed chests from pine with pine knots and called them toy chests. Brave exploits of cowboys that a little boy adored were painted on the outer sides and tops of the wooden toy chest.
The artwork depicted indians and cowboys astride galloping horses. Inside the toy chest were the wooden choo-choo train, wooden wagon, little wooden boats, puppets, a peg board, a milk truck, rockers, and colorful tops.
There’s an old well-worn, kiddie-sized baseball mitt carefully wrapped in moth-eaten linen and an old wooden bat. A pair of toy soldiers, the remnants of a set of 12 continues, to keep watch. These are the toys of yesteryears. The old...