Dan's Papers - August 24, 2007 -

Toy recall. We've seen much about it in the newspapers recently. The big guys like Mattel and Fisher-Price have, over the past months, recalled more than 10 million toys. Toys containing tiny magnets that might be swallowed by youngsters, toys containing toxic lead paint. About 80 percent of toys sold here at home are made overseas. I guess far-away toy people don't have as many regulations. Or maybe they ignore them.

You know, it's kind of funny-sad to me. Years back, whenever I heard the words "toy recall," I had many moments of pleasure. Of joy. For those words meant only one thing then. The toys of my youth, put away so long ago, unpacked again, so to speak.

Toy recall. Not so hard to remember, really. Most of us had only a few toys (unlike my grandchildren) and I don't think anyone ever recalled them. Well, my mother, maybe. She'd tell me to get that Monopoly game off the kitchen table or move my roller skates away from the back door. My father would be home soon and he might trip over them.

Certainly my little rubber ball was never recalled. I played with it every darned day. The game was called Russia and it involved throwing the ball against the side of my house and doing all sorts of twists and turns before the ball bounced back to me. Marilyn, my across-the-street friend, played the game with me. She lives in Fresno, California now. When we talk, we often toy recall.

Don't get me wrong. There are lots of fine toys on the market now. They must be fine - look how much they cost. And one day they'll be recalled fondly, I suppose, as I recall the little ball.

North Fork toy recall? All over the place. And not necessarily by folks over 40.

For example, there's Cutchogue's Alex Kluko. Alex just graduated from Cutchogue East Elementary School and is now a student at Mattituck-Cutchogue Junior High School. She recalls several toys of her early childhood. (And she is mature enough now to admit some of those toys are still in her life.) Alex was a jump-rope kid, either by herself or with a neighborhood pal or two. On rainy days it was Chinese checkers or that old, ever-new kid-card game, Go Fish. I recall that, too, Alex. So much fun.

Finally, Alex had, still has, a basketball. She sees it now as more than a toy and hopes to get on a junior high basketball team. Often Alex shoots baskets with her father. He has a height advantage, said Alex. Otherwise she'd be just as good as daddy.

Now meet Riverhead's Steve Richard. He's a big guy, over six feet tall, but he had to be little once, right? And Steve recalled those days for me, especially the days when he played with his very special toys.

They were blocks, just pine blocks. But all 60, maybe more, of them were made by his father. Dad cut the wood into various lengths and widths, sanded the blocks, no-lead painted them. Talk about love!

And what did Steve build with those blocks? Seems like everything. What was most fun, said Steve, was to stand still (that's hard for a 5-year old kid) and have Dad build up a house of blocks around his son.

Talk to Florence Taylor of Southold. She'll tell you about her tiny child-size table that even had a leaf in it. On rainy days Florence's mom would take two china teacups from a closet and prepare a mom-and-me tea party.

That meant tea brewed in a special teapot. And cookies, lots of them, made by mom. Florence liked her mother's shortbread cookies best. If I'd been there I would've reached for the chocolate. Florence knows now, she said, that there can never be a government recall of a mother's love.

You've hit on something there, Florence. You and Alex and Steve recall the toys you shared, especially with your parents. Your toys were simple. Didn't have to be imported or inspected. Certainly never taken off the market.

And yes, they are the toys stored in the heart of a child grown older.