charismah

I had rainbow bright, and my little ponies and barbie.....but I remember loving strawberry shortcake. I had many of the dolls. When I was learning to read for christmas one year my parents had bought me a tape recorder/player and a few book/tape re together combos.....but ( my parents had dubbed over the cassette tape and Strawberry was reading the ABC'S)...so she said C was for Charisma and I thought she knew who I was and I kept waiting for her to say hi to me on saturday morning cartoons. hehe.

charismah

oh Do you remember Jem? she was jerica when she wasn't
a rockstar...and their rivals were the misfits? I had the dolls..each doll came with a cassette tape......Jem is her name no one else is the same JEM!lol.s

Tink's Mom

Wow! We were talking about this stuff at the craft show today! I had an original Barbie with the striped bathing suit, and many homemade clothes for her. Red brick building blocks and lincoln logs(wood). The old metal rollerskates. A baby doll that crawled, tea sets, and best of all a little Singer sewing machine that was electric.
Anyone remember the original black Super Balls??? They were the size of a tennis ball. I think they were banned or something......Boy did they bounce...... :D

Mrs. I

Now you are from my generation. I too had the skates that went on your shoes with a key, a jump rope, never got the tiny tears but my neighbor did. I loved my baby dolls. Have my first walking doll. She is about l foot tall. My how times have changed and I am afraid they are not for the better.

Mrs. I

sewjoyce

Anybody remember "aluminum" Christmas trees with that crazy color wheel? My mom had one of those and she thought it was the prettiest thing :D

tlrnhi

You must be the same age as my oldest!
She had Jem and all the stuff that went with her. She even had a Gem car that when you opened the trunk, it was an AM radio. I STILL have that car along with the speakers that go with it. lol
Not sure why I have hung on to it all this time, but maybe my grandbabies are girls? :)

I didn't have Barbies...didn't like dolls. I wanted trucks and boy things lol
I did have the jump ropes and those swinging things that went around your ankle.
One year, my dad got a good deal on headphones. The HUGE ones that had the radio in them. We all got those. I still have mine too! lol
I think I was about 12 and my sister got Chrissy, the doll that it's hair grew. Well, for some reason, I pitched a fit and wanted Velvet. Chrissy's cousin. Pitched this fit on Christmas Eve! Well, guess what I got? Yup, Velvet. Opened the package, took her out, played with her for maybe 10 minutes, put her on my bed and that's where she stayed. Never played with her again.
We would get Hula Hoops. Those were hard to wrap.
Games of all sorts, but those always had ALL our names on them.
We lived in the middle of the woods, so we really didn't want for much in the way of toys. We had tree forts, rope swings and all sorts of cool things out there.
We would get sleds and ice skates since there was a hill in our back yard and a small pond.....

barbsbus

(I did have a Shirley Temple doll. I don't remember when I got her, but I know I still had her when I was in third or fourth grade, which would have been 1959-1960. I wish I knew what happened to her. I always kept all my toys and books, but she disappeared. I may have thrown her away, now that I think about it more. I think I got tired of her curls and decided to give her a short haircut. Did you know the hair on dolls doesn't grow back? I may have thrown her away so I wouldn't get in trouble. )

Back in 1956 I was just out of high school and working for the Emporium at the Stanford Shopping center in Palo Alto, CA. I was a salesperson and worked my way up to being the manager of the doll department, mainly because my man boss did not want to mess with the dolls and stuffed animals. Anyway one day a very pretty lady came into my doll department and was looking at the dolls. She asked me to see the manager and I told her I was the manager of the doll department, did she want me or my boss, was the manager of the total toy department She said she would like to speak with me in private. So I took her into the back storeroom where I had the restock for my department. She said that she was associated with the company that made the Shirley Temple doll and she noticed I had several of the dolls on display behind the glass doll case. I said I did and thought the dolls were really cute but sometimes their eyes crossed. She laughed and said to make them look better it was helpful if I always cocked their heads at a little turn to the left. So I thanked her and we went back out to where the dolls were displayed and I rearranged them so they were not crossed eyed anymore.
She winked at me and said thank you. Then she picked out about $ 200 worth of toys and gave me her charge card. I had to call in her charge since it was over $ 50 and it had the name Shirley Black. I could see some of the customers were watching us and whispering as I talked with her. After she left one of the older women who was a salesclerk in the other part of the toy department came running over to me all excited and asked me if I knew who I had been talking to. I said she was from the company that made the Shirley Temple dolls and her name was Shirley Black. My friend says, "you were talking to Shirley Temple Black" I almost died. Anyway she used to call the store to order toys for gifts and always asked to talk to the manager of the doll department and then she always had orders well over $100 and I was paid a small salary and got a commission over a $2000 sales for the month so thanks to her I had some bonus paychecks.

I remember having the Shirley Temple paper dolls and watched the movies she was in. She was my heroine.

Lyn4ty

so yes we had a tree like that and the color wheel squeaked LOL! But my mom thought it was really classy and the hot thing to have. I remember when we had huge christmas lights on the real trees and some were like candles with bubbles going up inside of them when they were on.

Lisanne

GREAT story, Barbsbus!

(Only, you said this was in 1956, but in the previous paragraph you said you were in 3rd or 4th grade in 1959. So were you managing the dolls in 1st grade????)

barbsbus

Me and dates are bad..LOL I graduated from high school in '56 Moved to Mill Valley right after ww11 I think in '46 and I was in the 3rd or 4th grade.
The 1st paragraph I copied and pasted from another post. LOL