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The Star Wars Hoth playset is set up unnervingly close to the Barbie pool set, the jagged white plastic snow landscape with its gun turrets and traps nestling next to sun-kissed cardboard grass and patio tables. I clutch the large gray AT-AT action figure, a mechanical...elephant...of sorts from The Empire Strikes Back, and splash it forcefully into the Barbie pool, which it dwarfs.

Skipper, sunning herself in the shallow end, is unperturbed. I'll fix that. "Where's your lightsaber NOW, Skipper?" I growl in my most menacing 7-year-old voice, the AT-AT looming over her. Meanwhile, hapless Ken has found himself the victim of a snow-covered trapdoor over on Hoth. My sis drives Barbie the six inches over to Hoth in the sleek purple Barbie Corvette, grasps the doll, and clambers over the ice to rescue him.

We didn't have much money, but our parents somehow managed to keep us awash in toys. I wasn't much of a toy-kitchen girl, but the Easy-Bake Oven entranced me. It was baking in its most primitive form - by light bulb. The tiny, Easy-Bake sized boxes of cake mixes were treasured luxuries to be used sparingly, and I adored mixing them and pouring them in the small round pans, and cutting them into bite-sized triangles to eat when done.

The Fisher-Price auto garage, hospital, and Sesame Street Playhouse made us lords of tiny worlds. As with the little traps in the Hoth playset, child-sized mechanical gizmos made these toys special. Cranking a handle to make your little people go up and down an elevator made me feel a sense of mastery amidst the adult-controlled world of "don't touch; you might break that."

And that's the way the best toys make you feel: empowered. I could bake; I could repair cars; I could destroy Barbie's backyard with militaristic Star Wars action figures. Hoth and Barbie are gone now, sold at garage sales long ago, but our mom held onto the Fisher-Price toys, and her grandkids play with them today. Sure, the kids have a PlayStation, but they also like to get down and dirty with real, tactile toys - an action-packed fantasy world with little Cookie Monster and hospital nurse action figures. What's that? Sounds like an emergency! We need milk and cookies, stat!

Learn more about this author, Barbara Armstrong.
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