Sunday's Fun Day

Did your dad ever announce "Sunday's Fun Day?" Every dang Sunday? And Sunday meant we played games as a family.  My parents had this thing for games. All right, who am I to say it's a bad thing for parents to play games with their kids? It's a wonderful thing. We (my sibs and I) didn't sit around on our bony little butts watching TV or playing video games. And on Sundays we weren't left to our own devices either. Our parents stepped in and spent quality time with us. I admire them for it. Except for they had no idea what the good games were.

We had dopey games like Sorry and Skunk circa 1947. I coveted games with moving parts, unlike the old-fashioned ones we had which consisted of nothing more than dice or cards and a colored peg you would claim as "my guy." Why couldn't we have games with a Pop-O-Matic? And you know what game I wanted most of all? That's right, Mystery Date.



Of course as a kid I didn't know my parents were dirt poor and couldn't afford to buy new games. Besides, I'm sure Dad wouldn't be too interested to see if his mystery boy would be a dream or a dud.

But Saturday morning cartoon commercials would mock my poor family's games most of all with none other than Mouse Trap. How cool was that? Fortunately we had a cousin who's parents were really rich frivolous and he actually had the Mouse Trap game.  Whenever we visited we would forego the actual game part of Mouse Trap and just put together the whole trap thing with the kicking boot, the guy in the bathtub, and the marble going down the rickety steps.  What fun! 



One year for Christmas my dream came true. No, it wasn't a game with a moving part. It was even better. It was a doll that walked! Baby First Step. I remember that Christmas like it was yesterday. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.



It didn't matter that she walked around like a little crippled child in leg braces and had no sense of direction. It required batteries and had moving parts!

Mechanical games and toys were the ultimate when I was growing up. I'm really glad Boyfriend and I never had kids though. I wouldn't have any idea how to even approach the mechanical toys of today. Technology is where it's at, and I'm so not on board with all that. If I had kids I'd totally make Sunday Fun Day, but my kids would run and hide the minute I pulled out the old-fashioned deck of cards for a game of Go Fish.