Atomic Blasters and Candy Cigarettes
When you’ve finished your visit at the Peoria Zoo, be sure to pass through neighboring Washington, Illinois for a journey back in time. In the town square you’ll discover Holland’s Mercantile. My niece, 7-year-old local historian, informs me that it was Abraham Lincoln’s favorite store to visit when he was going to court in Metamora, IL.
It’s great bit of history for a place that truly exists in a time capsule, one unmarked by modern PC parenting. Up front is a long expanse of candy you can buy in bulk while waiting for your phosphate at the counter. Among the candy are licorice pipes and candy cigarettes. We did a double-take seeing some of this stuff.
The back room is a fantastic little toy store, where Melissa and Doug meets Cowboys and Indians.
There were species of toys extinct in NYC … ray guns, cap guns, cowboy guns… all manner of toy guns sure to enrage the bugaboo-wielding crowd.
On spotting all of these toys while shopping with my daughter, I felt… glee. Pure joy that’s hard to explain. In part it’s because I used to love collecting toy guns before Olive was born, which as a responsible-seeming Manhattan parent I parted with in a yard sale.
But in part the joy came from being in a place where I could let my guard down for a short time, releasing ever so briefly the PC filter through which everything must pass. Water guns are taboo in my neighborhood, but were such a big part of summertime fun in my childhood. And, they have yet to turn me into a violent criminal.
It’s not like I’m about to advocate children having candy cigarettes or matchstick erasers. There’s a reason these things go the way of the dodo. But can an atomic blaster with foam rockets be all bad?
What’s your reaction to seeing these things? Glee? Horror? Something in between?
June 20th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
They just make me laugh and smile. I remember fake smoking candy cigarettes. My father was a smoker.
I never took up smoking and never wanted to.
My mother was VERY adamant about us never saying anything “violent” whilst pointing toy guns at one another. We never ever said “Bang bang you’re dead” or whatnot. It was just like… squirt w/squirtgun, run away before you get squirted back!
And hey, none of us are gun owners
June 21st, 2009 at 11:25 am
I find the matchstick erasers a little frightening (I’d never heard of those before). As far as, say, having toy guns in the house…I don’t want them in my house, because I’m a pacifist and they bother me, but I wouldn’t be horrified if they played with toy guns at someone else’s house. I think. If they came home talking about how cool they were, I’d take that as an opportunity to neutrally volunteer my own opinion. But either way, I wouldn’t consider that kind of play to be an indicator of how they’ll feel about guns when they’re older.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I agree with Tatiana. My cousins and I used to get candy cigarettes and pretend to smoke them, but I didn’t think anything about it beyond the fact that it was fun and silly, and I’ve never been a smoker.
Water guns were a summer staple when I was little. I played soccer and my team would always have an end-of-season party that included chasing each other around the yard with water guns.
Neither of those things had an effect on the way I think about real cigarettes and guns now. They were just a part of innocent childhood play, lost among the joy of Legos, Star Wars action figures, stuffed animals, and all of the other things I played with as a child.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Forgot to add, I am a little iffy on the matchstick erasers, though. I never saw those when I was a kid and I’d be kind of afraid that they’d encourage a child to play with real matches.
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:02 pm
I was in the store with my mom, whose fond memories of matchstick erasers match mine about water guns.