Lego, and The Kid In Me

No children were involved in the hands-on part of this post, LOL. That’s right just me and an afternoon of building Lego.

Interesting Facts, you may not know.

-A Danish carpenter, Ole Kirk Kristiansen founded Lego in 1932. He started by making toys and wooden blocks.

-In 1958 he patented and began manufacturing what we know as Lego today, and every block made since then can lock together.

-Lego is the largest manufacturer of wheels, out producing Bridgestone and Goodyear.

-If Lego figurines were real people, they would be the largest population in the world.

As a youngster, I loved playing with Lego. I often built a truck and livestock trailer for my farm-set animals. Oh wow, this might date me. Does anyone remember farm-sets? Maybe they’re still made, I haven’t been in a toy store in a long time. I had the tin barn kind with most species of plastic farm animals, choking hazard size or smaller. The figurines were poised and on platforms so they would stand. There was snap together fences, a tractor and field equipment. It even had rows of garden crops, tools, shovels, and tons of other tiny pieces.

Anyway, back to my main topic, Lego. What I had growing-up was about six sizes, in single or double row blocks, some platforms, and flat pieces. Most were red or white.

Using just these simple blocks meant projects other than buildings would resemble what you were trying for but they were rarely pretty.

In those days, Lego sets weren’t as specific, they simply came in different size sets.

You used your imagination to design things because building manuals didn’t come in sets until 1964.

I remember the excitement when black, yellow and blue colored pieces appeared and specialty pieces started showing up. Like curved corners, clear pieces, different doors and windows, and the little people.

Even back then Lego was a costly toy, so I had little of it, but my cousin often got the newer sets. During visits to his house, him and I would create and build for hours.

By the time, mine and Mister’s, kids were old enough and Lego returned into my life it had changed a lot. The son and daughter both enjoyed building things, and they started with what I had saved of mine and their collection grew from there.

They only got a few big fancy sets, special ones like, a large pirate boat, a castle, and a stable set, to name some favorites.

The kids and I, enjoyed great times together building for hours. It wasn’t Misters favorite thing to take part in because we usually sat on the floor surrounding a pile of pieces or laid on our stomachs propped on our elbows.

Why am I writing about Lego you may wonder?

Because, knowing how much I enjoy building Lego, the Son and his Girlfriend got me a unique set for Christmas.

I was waiting for a chance to build it with him during a visit, but that hasn’t worked out. So yesterday being a cold blustery day, I selfishly built one of the set’s options and enjoyed every minute.

Have you ever built Lego?

P.S. – Dropped or forgotten pieces of Lego found by stepping barefoot on them is still as painful as it used to be.