Playing with Toys

By Christopher Tupa

Playing with Toys is a collection of 13 stories from various authors that all center growing up with our toys. They range from stories about different types of toys to collecting as a kid, playing with toys outside and about the adventures we made up while playing with our toys. Hopefully this book will bring back some of your own toy memories or perhaps inspire you to make some new ones. My favorite thing about this collection is the opportunity to see how other people played with their toys, to hear about the toys they had that I didn’t and most of all the read about the imagination that these toys inspired.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher Tupa
• Release date: Nov 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781370760589

Christopher Tupa

Hi! I am an artist working mostly in ink and watercolor. My favorite subjects are pop-culture and TV/Cartoon characters but I have also made my own comics and what-not. Check out my website for all the whimsical and fun art you can stand!

Book preview

Playing with Toys

Edited By Christopher Tupa

Copyright 2013 Christopher Tupa

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. Thank you for your support.

Playing with Toys is a collection of 13 stories from various authors that all center growing up with our toys. They range from stories about different types of toys to collecting as a kid, playing with toys outside and about the adventures we made up while playing with our toys. Hopefully this book will bring back some of your own toy memories or perhaps inspire you to make some new ones. My favorite thing about this collection is the opportunity to see how other people played with their toys, to hear about the toys they had that I didn’t and most of all the read about the imagination that these toys inspired. Enjoy!

Table of Contents:

1.The Machine is Always Greener - Star Wars Obsession… and Compulsion - Tintod

2. Making it! - Christopher Tupa

3. Wrestling – Speedlgt

4. Playmobil in Peru – Traveling Pics

5. What Happened to My Childhood (Toys)? - Joe Zicari

6. Just Playing - Joseph Beirau

7. Transformers Love - Battle Catman

8. My Toy Memories - N.A. Crespo

9. MUSCLE Mania - John Morey

10. Universes Colliding – Trey

11. Nan’s Garden - Oliver Queen

12. Secret Wars - Doug McCoy

13. Three things – Marc Allie

The Machine is Always Greener

by Tintod

http://www.junkfed.com

Having just returned from the arcade with his father, Aaron bounded up the flight of stairs that separated our apartments breathless and eager to report on the newest game cabinet on the arcade floor: You’re this yellow mouth guy in a maze and you have to eat all these pellets and there are ghosts chasing you and if they touch you die but if you eat these big pellets the ghosts turn blue and you can eat them but it only lasts for a little while and then they start chasing you again! Jealous that I had not been able to share in the video game nirvana, I feigned only a mild interest.  He was talking about Pac-Man, of course, and based on his opinion of the game, I couldn’t wait to play.

I don’t recall the details, but it’s likely I met Aaron racing our big-wheels up and down the sidewalk in the neighborhood. I like to imagine connecting over our mutual transportation preference, kicking the tires and talking shop, She’s no Green Machine, but she’s all mine. Every kid wanted a Green Machine, but no one in the neighborhood seemed to have one.

After my parents’ separation my mother and I moved from our house into an apartment in a four family house owned by Aaron’s grandmother half a block away.  Aaron’s grandparents lived on the ground floor, and Aaron and his parents lived in the unit just below ours. They invited us in and treated us like a members of the family, making this difficult time a lot less scary for me.

Being a year older than me, Aaron was always a step ahead in kid knowledge, experience, and wisdom. We both attended school in the same tiny brick building our fathers had attended, just one street over from where we lived. Often he’d prepare me for, or tease me about, what to expect during my coming school year, having just experienced it himself. Days after school were spent at Aaron’s in the care of his parents as I waited for my mother to get home from work or school. I was happy to be there as we were always well occupied. We’d hang out in his room thumbing through comic books or Bantha Tracks, Newsletter of the