Memory Lane Monday

Since the past couple of trips down Memory Lane have been a bit sad, I thought we'd lighten things up a bit for today's stroll. When I saw this, it brought back many, many memories. Presenting: The Bouncy, Rocking Horse on Springs from the seventies and eighties!




Do you remember these things?! I had completely forgotten about ours, but when I saw this picture, it brought back happy (and sometimes painful) times! As a younger kid, you just kind of sat there and rocked and bounced and well, basically used the toy the way it was intended. At one time or another (depending on which show or book I might have watched or read recently)this plastic on springs was a steed for Laura Ingalls from Little House, Little Joe from Bonanza, Alec from The Black Stallion or a race horse in the Kentucky Derby. That was just in my little mind, I have no idea what kind of adventures my brothers might have had.

When we got a little bigger, the poor horse was pushed to the limit. We'd like to see how far you could stretch the springs. Those springs wouldn't cut today's "safety standards" but we were tough back then! If you wanted to be a jockey you could put your feet up on the little crossbars, but not too far over or you'd get pinched! Ahh yes the pinching springs: not one kid that rode these horses went without the pinch. Sometimes it was your fingers, sometimes your legs; it HURT and it left a nasty little purple welt. But, you'd suck it up and keep on going because A) if you got off, someone else would get on and B) they were just battle scars, proof of a seasoned rider!

Another fun game was rocking the horse so hard that the nose would touch the floor going forward and the tail going back. This definitely tested the springs. Sometimes you'd get going a little too well and *THWUNK* the spring would sproing, and the horse would come crashing down seizing all motion in mid-ride. If lucky, the rider catapulted across the room, cowboy-rodeo style, landing somewhere beyond the frames that supported the horse. More often however, the rider would just be slammed into the metal frame of death (which *GASP* had no foam padding), smacked down to the floor like an early version of WWF. And you would probably get caught in the springs on the way down as well, for that one added little "pinch" for fun.

But we were tough. We'd press on. And we knew not to complain or cry too much because then Mom or Dad would just lecture us about the proper care and riding of plastic horses. No, no lawsuit back then; parents knew that kids did dumb things. To sue the plastic horse people would have been like suing the caveman for inventing fire because your kid burnt himself poking the campfire with sticks. It may not have been a safer world back then, but it was a lot better!

*** A special thank-you goes out to Ben Roberts for lending me this picture (he's the cute kid on the horse in high 70's fashion). He is my friend Jill's husband, (she was the Maid of Honor at our wedding almost 15 years ago). Bet you guys never thought sharing this pic would become someone's blog fodder!