ON AGING Yes, I had a great idea, and I’m proud of myself.
However, it took quite a while for the idea to come together. I think the process started during my childhood, the Great Depression years, the 1930s. We eight children had only toys which my older brothers made. We had a great time with our bobsled, and my oldest brother whittled me a beautiful pencil box. During the 1950s my husband, Leonard, and I made toy trucks and cars for our boys and doll cribs for the girls. I enjoyed sewing bedding for the cribs. A generation later Leonard made more toys for grandchildren. Sad to say, we had no granddaughters so there were no doll cribs and bedding for me to make.
A few years ago we heard about Toys for Tots, a United Way of Aroostook program to collect toys for Christmas presents. That made good sense to us, and we bought and contributed what we could afford. We wished we could buy more.
One would think that with such a background it would take less than a few years for me to wonder if we could make toys for the United Way program. After all, for what we could afford we could make a lot more toys than we could buy. I don’t remember exactly when, but it finally dawned. Leonard and I discussed the idea, and we wondered if United Way would care to distribute homemade toys. The toys wouldn’t be new, shiny and plastic. However, they would be new, they would have bright paint, and they would last. We still have toys our children and grandchildren played with for years.
We decided to ask. Leonard made two doll cribs, and once again I bought dolls and truly enjoyed making mattresses, pillows, sheets, and blankets. With apprehension we took the toys to the United Way office and asked the ladies there if our toys were OK for their program.
Wow. Our toys were OK. The ladies said they had special places for our cribs and they would be thankful for all the toys we could make. We were delighted.
Wow again. During a conversation I learned just how far United Way of Aroostook reaches. Last year, toys were delivered to one thousand (That is 1,000) children. This year the number is eleven hundred (1,100). We were amazed.
As we worked on our project, toys and toy parts collected from room to room in closets and under furniture. My sister, a daughter and a son visited. They liked my idea and contributed so we could afford to make more toys. Our children, incidentally, make an ongoing effort to keep us busy.
Our toy project was fun. We are grateful that United Way exists to help adults and children. Perhaps our neighbors at United Way help in more ways than they realize. After all, they are young, strong, bright and quick. They have an important job to do. They can’t know how useless some of us oldsters feel after we retire and have nothing useful to do. Leonard and I again do something useful. This year we enjoyed making those toy trucks, pickups, teddy bear chairs, and doll high chairs and cribs.
In addition, when we delivered the toys to United Way my idea spread as I never would have imagined. WAGM TV did a short program on our toys. A friend called and wondered if she could contribute 40-odd sets of home-knit children’s mittens and hats to United Way. Another friend called and wants to crochet doll blankets for next year’s cribs. I’ll bet those will be beautiful. Another friend brought an armful of scrap pine to be cut up into toy parts.
Now if I can just keep Leonard in the shop — and working.
