Zozie Blake, Time Ambassador

I wonder how Victorian babies stayed cool in the summer!

Hiya, Friends!  A while back, I discovered a hat that when I put it on my head, made me look like an Edwardian Lady.   On a Big Person, the hat is nothing remarkable, but on me, it's fabulous, and looks very Edwardian, as I mentioned before. 

Well, that hat got me thinking about little kids in times other than mine.  It really did.  It made me wonder how they'd like the way things are in the time where we live.  It kind of makes me wish I could hop into some kind of device and go visit other times, and always come back, of course. I'd hate to get stuck in a time other than my own.  I'm not saying that because I'm prejudiced against other times, but this is the time I'm most familiar with, and the most comfortable around.

I feel safe here, in other words.

I know there's a lot of things to be afraid of in our time.  I could go on and on about 'em, but I don't wanna dwell on scary things, and I'd rather not give us all a dyspepsia in so doing.  Some scary things, you can't do anything about.  Some scary things, you can.  Just all of us need keep putting one foot in front of the other, and keep our heads on a swivel, and hopefully, we'll all be all right.

Back to my original topic of inquiry, though, Friends, besides wondering how people from the past would think if they could see today, I wonder how it'd be to go back to a time and visit.  I'd wanna make sure I was all current and up-to-date on my shots.  I don't like shots.  Don't get me wrong.  But I also don't wanna get really sick, and the shots help keep me from getting sick.  Don't take that as me being controversial.  I know not everybody is a shots cheerleader, but I'm not trying to pick a fight with anybody.  I'm glad we live in a time where there are shots if ya want' 'em, and if you don't, you just don't get the shots.  For lotsa years, there were no shots, and you kind of had to hope you didn't get small pox, or measles, or diphtheria, or rubella, or polio.

What would a kid in the twenties do for fun?

I like choices!

So, once I was all current and up-to-date on my shots, which I am pretty sure I am, but I'd wanna make sure, I'd like to take a hop back in time to when my Mommy and Daddy were little kids!  I think I'd see a lot of things I'd recognize.  They had TVs and microwaves and radios and cars.  Things were a little different, though.  I hear there were things called tapes, and you could listen to music on 'em.  Also, there were record players.  Mommy says she had a record player of her very own.  I think that'd be pretty cool.  I've never seen a record in person before, but I've seen pictures, and they were pretty.

Could you imagine showing an iPod to little kids from when Mommy and Daddy were little?  Do you think they'd believe that now, everybody has a computer that fits right on their laps, or that's even smaller?  Daddy told me that it was a big deal, the first time his class got to use the computer at school!

And then, if I took a laptop computer back to when Gramma and Grampa were little kids.  Boy, Gramma and Grampa had some neat toys.  Gramma tells me about cap-pistols!  I can't imagine such a thing, but I bet they would have been lotsa fun!  And Grampa says he usedta have a PEDAL CAR of his very own!  I know little kids now have Power Wheelz, and I think one of those would be kinda cool (I'm not gonna lie.  If I got a Power Wheelz Jeep, I'd squeeeeeeeee so loud everybody could hear it!), but Grampa's pedal car he had was real metal, just like a real car!  Not plastic!

I think my great-grandparents would have thought pretty much any of my toys were wondrous.   My great-grandparents grew up during the Great Depression, and getting just an orange for Christmas was a big deal!  Can you believe it?  I can!  And anything plastic woulda been UNHEARD OF! for them!  I kind of can't even fathom that, because when I look in my play room, just about everything I see is all bright-colored and plastic!

That doesn't make me a toy snob.  I don't turn my nose up at wooden toys.  In fact, some of my favorite toys are made out of wood! 

I'd pretty much like to just show kids from other times around my time.

Boy, I'd really like to get myself a cap-pistol!  Not because I'm violent!  I'm not violent!  But you've gotta think about how much fun it musta been to have a toy that made so much percussive noise! 

Then I get to thinking about way, way back.  Victorian kids.  Do you think those poor little Victorian kids had to go around with stuffy clothes like their parents did?  How much fun could that have been?  And what toys did those little kids play with?  I suppose hoops and sticks.  Ummmm, stereograms, whatever they were.  They had pianos.  I love the piano!  Maybe that's what I could do if I found myself in the Victorian Era.  It'd probably be about all I'd be able to do.

You know, for a time when they were so wrapped up in putting on a pretty Christmas, I kinda think those Victorians were a joyless bunch.  Kinda uptight.  For Pete's Aches, they thought hoops and sticks were super-fun toys!  Sheesh!

I know we've got our problems here in our times, Friends, but look at it this way.  At least we have our cars and computers and toilet paper, and we don't hafta wear corsets!

I love ya!  Muah!