Consider the moment when where your childhood toys are now in a museum.
Last month, I visited the Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh, it has a wide collection of toys from kids through the ages. From ancient, rustic dolls in Africa to elaborate turn of the century (last century) doll houses in the UK, all the games and toys kids from around the world played with are archived.
All of the displays had an almost archeological feel to them, with the kind of artifacts you’d see in a real museum detailed life from centuries and beyond.
Contrast that with another museum I visited this week.
In Detroit, they have The Henry Ford, a museum dedicated to innovation and life in America. Part of the display is a demonstration of life through the decades. There is a collection of TV sets through the years, a look at how we listened to music on cassettes, vinyl, and 8 tracks, and even a bedroom as it may have existed in the 1980s. Then there are the toys.
A collection of early digital toys like Merlin, The Little Professor, Speak and Spell, Electronic Quarterback, and Simon. My family had all of them. The toys of my childhood are now in a museum.
You know you’re old when …