Toy guns; construction sets (Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, etc.¹); train sets; steel Tonka trucks, plastic cowboys, Indians and horses; Pogo sticks; Creepy Crawlers, etc. were my favorite toys. Those I had to incessantly beg for and never be sure I’d get for Christmas. My mother was all too happy to give me dolls and clothes for them. I tried to enjoy dolls to make her happy, but they were so boring! The only middle ground toys which were a compromise between what my mother wouldn’t mind getting and what I wouldn’t mind having were puzzles.
For the first time in over 40 years, I’m slowly beginning to remember bits and pieces from my childhood. Maybe my ability to remember wouldn’t be so bad if my mother had not thrown away everything I collected (without my knowledge and/or any warning) every chance she got.² There was one toy I had no one dared to throw away. It was a little teddy bear I got when I was around 2 or 3 years old. Poor ‘Snow White’ was bullied just like I was. I was so upset when she (Snow White) was forcefully taken away from me and thrown into a tub of water containing freshly caught and sliced up fish. It made her stink like fish and I had to sleep with her like that until the smell wore off.
Snow White was the only one who got to watch me play in my dirt pile with toy cars, trucks, bricks, and a water hose. My little village had to have streams, along with roadways I’d make from tiny bits of gravel I’d transport with my dump truck. With white chalk, I’d draw doors and windows on the bricks and they would be the houses. Sticks and branches laying around were stuck upright in the dirt to landscape the territory.
When I wasn’t at my dirt pile, I’d be alone in a field making homes for lady bugs. I’d find a hilly area, then dig into the side of it and hollow out a living space. After the living quarters were done, vertical sticks neatly lined along the front become the front wall. It took a little extra creativity to construct windows and doors, but when I was done, I felt good.³
Small streams offered wonderful opportunities for making dams out of rocks, sticks, and leaves. Hours pass by as minutes because of the many pleasures streams hold.
During the early years of elementary school, the times I wasn’t invisible among other kids (or being teased by them) was when the teacher told students to draw maps or when students had to fold their own book covers made from brown paper bags. I was a magnet of attention then because they wanted me to draw their maps for them and make their book covers too.
I could not see what made me so different than the other children besides these school projects I mentioned. I had no clue why mostly everybody else seemed to ‘fit’ somewhere and belong, while I was the odd one out. It was not until January 28th, 2007 (after 52 years of living), the life long mystery finally became joyously solved by Aspergers! I do NOT regret being born neuro-A-typical one bit! I LOVE being Aspie — it’s the society’s attitude towards it that irks me!
¹Lego toys were not available yet, but if they were, you can bet I would have been begging for them!
²I took excellent care of my toys. They were kept neatly on my shelf and in my boxes. I also treasured my fossil collection, so why such things were discarded (especially when living in a large house) is beyond my comprehension.
³My dad was a carpenter. He should (and wanted to) have been an architect, but having only an eighth grade education (along with being an legal immigrant first learning to speak English at around age 40) kind of hindered that idea. Anyhow, as I was growing up, I’d visit him on his job sites. I love the smell of freshly sawed lumber and the feel of wet concrete. I’d plead with him to let me hammer nails into boards. No deal. It wasn’t ‘proper’ for girls to want such things.
