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About albee1000

Albee's daddy.

Toys Gone By

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My mom has long been one of my heroes (heroines?) and a champion of my creative impulses and flights of imagination.  One of the earliest examples of her limitless support was the Fiddlesticks sets she bought me.

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Here it is. The Knickerbocker Fiddlesticks World of Mazu building set. Been looking for it for about five years now. This is one of the earliest toys I can ever remember having.

Gaze upon this image and appreciate it. You don’t know what I had to do to get it.  Well, okay, I actually just had to look it up on Google, but it was only after five years  of searching for the set, in addition to another couple of nights looking for it again  (due to the fact that, uh, I forgot what it was called).  But MAN, that second search was ridiculous; there were virtually no pictures of the set anywhere on the net, no matter how many search terms I submitted.  Eventually, I had to resort to looking in the one place I suddenly remembered the pic would be – on my Facebook page, where I posted it three years ago.

This is what happens when I put things away.  I can never find them again.

The Knickerbocker Fiddlesticks sets were comprised of a series of multi-colored tubes, about the thickness of a #2  pencil, which varied in length, along with  a variety of two-, three-, and four-pronged connectors for putting the tubes together.  Every unit was packaged with larger, plastic shell pieces that allowed the builder to make various objects, from vehicles, to buildings, to otherworldly Lovecraftian horrors of gargantuan proportions.  “Action” figures (they could bend over and sit down) were included with the sets.  The Knickerbocker company had a long tradition of making toys from licensed characters, and they continued in that vein with several popular Marvel and DC superheroes, including Spider-Man and Superman.  One side of the figures was decorated with decals, with the characters standing invariably with arms akimbo.

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Above:  A Batman set.  I had that one too.

 As my little brain grew more and more complex in its ability to comprehend and appreciate my toys, I began to realize that the Fiddlesticks World of Mazu set had a certain aspect to it that I hadn’t noticed in other building toys:  you could build stuff with Legos and Lincoln Logs, but this thing was candy-colored conflict and excitement in one large box.  On the one hand, you get two astronauts.  On the other, you’re presented with an absolutely massive alien, the dimensions of which you, the builder, could dictate.  Though it’s solid, intimidating face and clawed feet looked a bit incongruous when mounted on its skeletal rainbow body, for one of the first times in my young life I had been presented with a toy that contained both antagonist and protagonists (or vice-versa) in one package.

Being a child who enjoyed the simple narrative of good-vs.-evil, the two astronauts would always have to be on their guard from becoming a snack for the malignant Mazu (I don’t recall ever using that appellation, however.  Prolly just called it ‘the monster’).  For his part, Maz was no passive threat.  He was packaged with two huge pincers that the builder could operate manually, trapping the perpetually-in-profile explorers and dragging them off to their doom.  Sadly, it wasn’t in my nature at the time to spin an adventure wherein the obviously enraged Mazu was an innocent actor somehow being provoked by the astronauts, possibly bugged by their environmentally-destructive attempts to score some unobtanium or some such.

But it mattered little.  What I had was a toy that allowed me, though I was unaware at the time, to explore my ever-growing love of speculative fiction and storytelling.  This was a toy that I could build into almost literally anything I wanted (a spaceship could be constructed as well, as the packaging shows), with an obvious push towards the realm of the FAR OUT!  If I wanted to follow the included instructions and build Mazu, or a starship, or just a plastic thingamabob from Fancyville, I was free to do so.  It wasn’t the little white connectors that kept my creations together, it was my imagination.

And this was one of the many reasons why my mom was my hero.  No matter what my report card may have said, no matter how unprofitable a future in being a chronicler of the impossible may seem, she never stopped feeding my imagination, never stopped inspiring me, pushing me, challenging me to consider things from different angles in order to become a better storyteller.

Between that, those wonderful memories of her showing me how to put Mazu together, and the tireless work she did to keep Mike and me rolling in toys to begin with (obviously having dealt with proper food, housing, and healthcare first), my mom enriched my life in ways I can’t begin to thank her for.

Nevertheless:  Thanks, Mom.

Things Your Autopsy Report Should Not Say

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And now, in the interest of public service, we present:

  • Short, wheezy Harry Potter-lookin’ geek with glasses and inhaler actually did know magic

  • Sweet-natured, fun-loving personality aside, Barney is still a Tyrannosaur, after all…

  • Mistakenly thought safe word was ‘faster’

  • Inoperable rectal cancer resulting from prolonged radiation exposure due to constant photocopying of buttocks

  • Meddling kids and dumb dog accidentally ripped off actual face

  • Died a little inside.  Considerably more so outside

  • Faked death a little too well

  • Crushed under gigantic pile of naked cheerleaders

  • Run right over by usually gentle “Lightning” McQueen

  • Ultimately, ironically, literally proved you had no brains

Like Pulling Teeth. Out of my Scalp 4: Hey, first draft’s finished. AAAAAAARGH!

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Figuring out my audience while writing a young reader’s book.

#4

You know, I would’ve thought that the spirit-crushing doubt that one experiences while stitching up their monster of a writing project was the worst part of the creative ordeal.  Turns out I was wrong.  The trepidation that kicks in after you finish the first draft can be just as daunting.

Ever hurt yourself in one of those “Ssssssssssssst-OOH!!” kind of ways?  Like, you’re shaving a part of your body that you can’t see all that well with a cheap “safety” razor, and then you zig when you should have maintained a nice, smooth, even zag?  You hear that “KRTCH!!” of flesh being ripped open, that uncomfortably familiar feeling of something viscous and sticky running from some intimately internal place, and the reality-boggling pain of having shredded the skin off of an inconceivably tender area?  If you haven’t, stop reading and go do it, and then you’ll know what I mean.

Arright, so now, you’re in this amazing amount of pain, and you know you’re bleeding.  But do you look at it right away?  Logically, you would – but there are many of those in this world [me] who would pause before taking a look at his handiwork.  There’s something about not looking at the thing that somehow puts off the magnitude of what happened. If I don’t see it, it’s not as bad as it feels.  Out of sight, somewhat out of mind.

Right now, I’ve put my story out of sight.  I finished the first draft of The Princess Project one week ago (28 October), and I haven’t really looked back since.  There’s something mildly unpleasant about reviewing the work I’ve done, as if doing so would show just how truly incompetent I am with the written word.  You would think that not glancing back at the finished draft would be a comforting thing, but no – it really only serves to ramp up my sense of dread about what I’ll find when I double-click the file once more.

The theme of this post was going to be doubt, but I find there’s plenty of that to write about here just by thinking about what I wrote.    The fear that I will inevitably be razzed for anything I put down is a powerful one, and it works on my whether I’m actually writing or not.  I gotta find a way to get over it, to surmount this dread and move forward.  It’s really not helping me meet my deadline at all.

KM Scott is an aspiring writer currently teaching English in South Korea.  He is currently sweating over a young-reader’s book, the development of which he chronicles in this blog.  Pray for him!

Things Your Autopsy Report Should Not Say

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And now, in the interest of public service, we present:

  • Saw doppelganger at night

  • Told Bond entire plan

  • Attempted to hypnotize cobra with flute despite its clearly established passion for the bassoon

  • Refused to let elitist, classicist, leftist, socialistic governmental attempts at intrusion on personal freedoms keep you from tormenting lions

  • Dominatrix lost focus for split second

  • Looked a little too much like an elderly Hitler

  • Crushed by overwhelming sense of meaninglessness in an empty universe  and/or tractor dropped from roof

  • Realized too late that the phrase “Leave me! Save yourselves!” is best spoken to dedicated loved ones and not panic-stricken strangers well out of earshot

  • Figurative statement taken literally

  • Junior weren’t never none too good with workin’ the safety on Ol’ Betsy

Like Pulling Teeth. Out of my Scalp 3: Arrested Character Development.

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Figuring out my audience while writing a young reader’s book.

#3

I’ve always felt that my writing process was akin to the evolution of living species on planet Earth:  It is crushingly slow and a lot of things develop that are going to prove unnecessary to the success of the end product, kind of like having a second appendix.  One of the things that causes me to drag my feet when getting something down on paper is the “incubation period”, the length of time that I let an idea marinate in my mind before trying to manifest it somehow.

This is where I heavily contemplate detailed elements of the idea, from character quirks to the history of the world the story is set in (the term “thorough daydreaming” would work as a good shorthand, except it’s longer).  Normally I’m content to do this to a certain degree, so long as I’m actually producing something.  Usually though, the truth is that the incubation period is criminally long in comparison to the production period.  It is far easier to think about the story than actually work on it.

However, with this Princess Project that I’m working on, I haven’t allowed myself the luxury of time.  I’ve a deadline now, and need to meet it if I’m going to reach my personal goals, not just as a writer, but as a teacher who wants to give his students a gift.  That’s not to say that I haven’t gone whole days without writing a darn thing, but nonetheless, the level of dedication I feel that I’m supposed to have is admirable.

Having to work without an extended cooking time is an interesting [frustrating] experience.  In truth, I’d come up with the idea several months ago, and so had plenty of time to think casually about the characters, technology, setting, et cetera.  This, I found, was the easier part of the story to write.  Those parts of the story that I hadn’t already envisioned were pretty easy to make up on the spot.  From a technical standpoint, the writing wasn’t a problem.

The voice of the story, on the other hand, was another matter (I’m writing in the past tense here because I’ve finally gotten the first draft done HALLELUJAH).  What I mean here is, what techniques should I use to tell the story?  Should I use narrative tricks, employ ambiguity to inspire the imagination, be explicit in the detail of the narrative?  What kind of language should I use?  I mean, my main characters are royal princesses.  Keeping my inscrutable audience of young readers (8-14, I guess) in mind, should I write down to what I would have to assume is their level, or should the ladies speak with a learned, scholarly, regal vocabulary?

And how do they speak to each other?  The protagonists can be described as Z, the Leader, Ayomi, the Adventurous One, and Ballista, the Smart One Who Shoots Things.  There are several different creative avenues to explore here.  Should Z be pedantic and virtuous, as Leader heroines are often depicted as, or should she be sly and forward thinking? How exactly do I present Ballista as both a reserved bookworm and wisecracking action heroine at the same time?  Does she actually crack wise, or does she make simple, somewhat philosophical statements that turn out to be witty one-liners when one sits and thinks about them?

There are two challenges here.  First, I have to get the voices of the characters straight.  I know who they are (roughly), I just need to develop how they sound.  Second, I have to bring those voices together in harmony; establish how they contrast with each other, bounce ideas between each other, and finish each other’s sentences.  In short, they need to become an old married couple (in an all-female, polygamous relationship way).

I find myself missing the incubation period.  This would have been spent composing the music of the characters interaction.  Sure, it would have taken a ridiculous amount of time, but I would’ve felt more comfortable going into the project.  And yet, maybe comfort is not what I need here.  Maybe I need to be a bit on edge here, unfettered by any sense of security, in order to challenge my limits and get my best work.  This could be a perfect opportunity to train my brain to produce more over a far shorter period of time, which would be an excellent talent to bring into writing for television.  Indeed, come to think of it, comfort only delays my desire to create.

I sure liked having it, though.

Next time:  DOUBT.

Like Pulling Teeth. Out of my Scalp. : Always with the self-editing!

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Figuring out my audience while writing a young reader’s book.

#2

In my previous blog post, I outlined a writing project which initially started as out as a children’s book, then became a short story for young readers.  As I’d already started the book out with simple, child-friendly language, I found that my workload had doubled up: not only did I have to finish the story, but I had to re-write what I’d already written it for my new audience as well.  This endeavor was made all the more complex by the fact that the notion of who exactly my audience consists of is a bit fuzzy to me.

As for the current state of progress on the project, well … allow me to let my inner monologue hold forth on that a bit:

AAAAHHH IT STINKS IT STINKS IT STINKS IT STINKS IT STINKS AAAAHHH!!!

Yeah, that just about sums it up – but not accurately, and not fairly either.  There was a certain confidence and ease with which I had written the initial story, two rare aspects of my writer’s mind that were very blatantly absent as I sat in the McDonald’s that night, gently coaxing my simple tale into a complex monstrosity.  How could rewriting something be so difficult?!

Upon reflection, the reason why is obvious:  The story (let’s call it Fighting Princess Story for desperate lack of a better title) was indeed simple; I’d written it not merely for children, but children for whom English was a foreign language.  What’s more was that the students I had in mind were my students, so the text, tone, concepts, and plot of the adventure were strongly informed by the familiarity I had with my small audience.

So now I’m trying to write for an unfamiliar audience, and as one of the posters on my debut article mentioned, writing for “young readers” is difficult in that such a group can mean a large number of people at different levels of maturity, even within specific age groups (8-10, 10-12, and so on).

This has resulted in a bit of a creative paradox.  On the one hand, as the upper-limit of maturity of the reader is vaguely defined, I feel a bit freer in what I can do, including lengthening the story, adding some complexity to the plot (not too much, of course), and expanding on the opening badminton game (two of the protagonists like badminton).  On the other hand, the lower limit of the potential reader’s skills is almost just as ambiguous, and as such leaves me to wonder just how advanced should the vocabulary be, how much detail is too much detail, or if the dialogue/narrative ratio equals out.  Or should it?

Now, honestly, having to deal with such questions would be no massive problem if I were to simply think them through before writing. I’m on a bit of a schedule, however, and so have to deal with these issues as I write the thing. And it was then that I discovered one of the reasons why I am so reluctant to fire up the word processor (or screenplay software) and just spit out one opus after another:  self-editing.  Not the act of going through a finished piece and looking for typos or places where improvements could be made, oh no – this type of self-editing happens just as you’re beating against the keys.

A line of snappy dialogue pops into your head, and you can’t get it down fast enough.  However, what emerges onscreen isn’t the Wilde-worthy bon mot you heard in your mind.  So, you stop – you stop the whole #*@$ train! – just to rewrite that line.  And … okay, so, this time, it’s a little closer to what you wanted, has a little bit of that spice – but then the issue of whether or not your audience will get it starts nagging at you before you’ve even looked it over good.  Will they understand the irony?  Is “predicament” a word too high over their heads?  Will they comprehend what the character said to begin with?  Was the line actually witty, or is the reality that you, the writer, cannot communicate wit, irony, or even a coherent sentence in English even if possessed by the spirit of a dead grammar book?

This, I realized, is literally quite tiring.  A wealth of creative energy is being used on these pathetic little hiccups that could probably be resolved far more casually in a second or third draft. It’s hard to see that when in the thick of it, of course, at which point the idea of doing a second draft seems ludicrously cruel since you haven’t finished the first.

But nitpicking and over-agonizing ain’t the half of it, oh no.  See, when you start dealing with one tiny conundrum after another, those conundrums seem to pile up.  Soon, the belief begins to creep in that what you’ve written is not a story so much as it a gigantic collection of inadvisable, self-important screw-ups which serves better as an example of how to fail as a writer than a piece of literary entertainment.  This kind of thinking eats into your self-esteem. You feel bad because this thing that you made in your mind is not behaving the way it should.  What kind of writer are you if you can’t control your writing?  Maybe you should have done what your mother insisted and become a neurosurgeon.  Pft.  Shyeah, right. You would’ve blown that too.

Then after slinking off your laptop and letting things sit for a while, your level-headedness kicks in (though not enough to tell you to stop being a writer) and reminds you that you haven’t cleared the middle of the story yet.  It’s too early to start cutting yourself down.  There’s plenty of time for that after the story is finished.  But no, seriously – the thing is not that bad.

I get so bogged down in silly little details and self-consciousness that I forget (neglect) to get the thing done.  I have to remember that sometimes the best thing to do is just smash through to the end of the story, let it go for a while, and then go back and revise.  Trying to be peerlessly brilliant on the first attempt is simply putting myself in a pressure cooker for no good reason.  I need to learn to relax and, if humanly possible, enjoy the writing experience.

To this end, I have made it a point not to worry so much about what I should or shouldn’t write – I’ll just write it.  The fixes will be simple and readily available after the first draft is completed; there’s no reason to worry about a poor result so early in the development stage.  You must first learn to walk before you can run headlong into a telephone pole.

Next time, character development on the fly.

Like Pulling Teeth. Out of my Scalp.

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Figuring out my audience while writing a young reader’s book.

It was earlier in the year when I had the inspiration.  My work as a kindergarten teacher in a hagwon gave me the idea for a book series featuring heroic princesses in action-packed adventures written for kids. Excited about the idea, I shared it with my students (all between the ages of 7 and 8), and banged out an excerpt of the story with drawings to give to them as birthday gifts.

At some point – I cannot recall when – it occurred to me to make the thing bigger.  To go from a six page excerpt to a completed work wasn’t good enough.  Now, the dream had expanded: I wanted to bring the plights of my heroines into the world of young readers.  The method?  Self-publishing.  The resources?  My laptop, Lulu.com, and an artist commissioned to do the illustrations.  All that left was the story!

Hm. The story.  Well, the story pretty much wrote itself – good guys (gals) vs. bad guys (a woman with a machine gun, air superiority, and an extremely anti-social attitude).  The problem was that, for some reason, I decided to write for a new audience.  So now, my quest is to write my story for a nebulous, hard-to-define, kinda cloudy group of readers somewhere between the ages of 8 and 13.

It’s not an easy task.  I’ve always found it easier to figure out my taxes than to figure out my audience.  When my focus was narrowed to kindy kids who were learning English, things were relatively simpler:  if I wanted to use a word longer than three syllables, I instead put in a substitution a smaller word or phrase that meant the same thing.  I even intended to put a glossary* in the back for certain words, with the intent of hopefully helping ESL students expand their vocabulary.

Writing for this older group of readers is a different story as itt’s a group that I’m unfamiliar with.  I was 8-to-13 years old myself once, but it was only for a couple years back in the early 80s.  At 38, I feel that I’ve moved on since, and as such I don’t quite remember how challenging reading was.  Heck, I was a good reader; it was never really a challenge for me – just boring.  I was a movie fan.  So, when it came to all the books you were supposed to read from 8-13, I never bothered.  The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Lizard Music, Old Yeller, Are You There God?  It’s Me, Margaret, The Anarchists Cookbook, and so on, never had an impact on me.

That’s what this blog is about.  I’m pretty much going to have to figure out how my new audience works. How complex should the vocabulary be?  How much detail should I use when establishing background, character, settings? Should I concern myself with whether boys will like reading a book where the protagonists are all young women?

Now, I’m not going to pretend that readers are going to be clamoring for this thing-– it’s really just a personal project I’d like to see done before my students graduate in March, so I can gift it to them as a reward for putting up with me all year.  Perhaps it’ll be a little over their ability now, but it could end up being something they could use to sharpen their reading skills later.

So, for anybody out there who’s ever struggled in trying to figure out just how to write for your readers, here’s your chance to watch as I fly face-first into such and adventure.  I’ll be glad to have you along for the ride.

* glossary: a list at the back of a book, explaining or defining difficult or unusual words and expressions used in the text

Things Your Autopsy Report Should Not Say

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And now, in the interest of public service, we present:

  • Ingested bong

  • Thought saying “Braaaaaains …”  and limping with arms outstretched in menacing manner would be a really funny way to greet a group of  jumpy zombie hunters

  • Victim blamed it all on the media; in response, the media blew up victim’s car

  • Chicken surprisingly well-versed in the use of butterfly knife

  • Pulled out nose hair (of Mr. T)

  • Idiot husband apparently thought himself some sort of freakin’ engineering genius when tinkering with gas furnace

  • Wasn’t so much the heat as it was the humidity – and the alligators

  • Rocket pack failure makes escape from sarlacc pit impossible

  • Otherwise would have had to endure another Twilight sequel

  • Doused with boiling-hot fudge, skinned alive by a barrage of peanuts, and  drowned in gallons of soft-serve ice cream during bloody coup d’état in the land of Dairy Queen

My Mannam Experience: Fun and Friendliness in SK

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by KM Scott

I was first approached by a woman in the AK Plaza shopping center in Seohyeon. She’d asked me, in broken English, if I’d like to take a survey. Not in any rush and just leisurely enjoying my day, I agreed. The questions were so simplistic in nature that they caught me off guard – in fact, they had nothing to do with retail, which is what I would have expected in such a place. Though memory fails as to the exact wording, the questions were basically about what I, as a foreigner, would like to see done differently in South Korea, such as what kind of shops or food would I like to see more of, and what kind of humor would I like to share with Koreans.

I really didn’t get it at first. The lady then showed me a pamphlet in English telling me about the group she was working for, Mannam Volunteer Association. At first glance, it looked like some kind of international goodwill organization, the kind of outfit that displayed pictures of groups of multicultural folks of all walks holding hands and smiling into the camera.

What little hair my advancing age had let remain on my head stood on end. I’d seen this type of thing before, and had once or twice been the unfortunate victim of it: some ruthlessly cheerful group of zealous wingnuts under the authority of some rightfully ridiculed religious institution trying to fatten their ranks with a silly, syrupy message about universal love or some other garbage. That, or an attempt to pull me into some kind of pyramid scheme involving selling out my friends and loved ones. This was precisely the sort of crass manipulation I expected to find at this … whatever it was I was going to.

I’m glad to say my expectations were not met.

Having spent way too many Sunday afternoons cooped up in my apartment, I decided to take a risk and see what this Mannam was all about. Some of the stuff they had advertised, such as massages, food, stand-up comedian performances, and haircuts, actually sounded quite nice, and a bargain at a 10,000 won (roughly $10 US) entry fee.

The event I actually attended turned out to be free. I was taken to a public meeting area by car after taking the subway just a few stops from my home. I was immediately greeted by many smiling Mannam representatives. Walking into the event, I saw no religious tracts, no symbols, no hucksters trying to get me to buy anything. What I did see were activities, and I participated in every one of them: face painting, archery (with sucker arrows), acupuncture (in the fingers!), even a free body massage. There was a wonderful layout of food, and I hit the spaghetti bowl at least three times. In the middle of the four-hour event, there was a great talent show, featuring a number of performers, from middle school kids doing a truly impressive acrobatic dance, to a virtuoso violin player tickling the strings to a rousing background track. There were even dance lessons as to how to do the “Gangnam Style” dance, based on the internationally omnipresent K-pop hit of the same name.

The gathering was truly multicultural. People from all over the world attended, from Bangladesh to Kyrgyzstan, and even the mysterious and inscrutable land of Ohio.

As fun as all this was, the most endearing element of all was the friendliness of the Mannam folks. The stated goal of Mannam is to be an organization that promotes world peace. While the cynic in me may blanch at that, I could not help but feel touched by the smiles, kindness, and apparent desire to help visitors have a good time. Towards the end of the event, I was guided from one activity table to the next by a tirelessly genial woman whose sweet nature seemed in no way forced or condescending. Everybody was like that.

Big, public get-togethers with strangers promoting goodwill is not the sort of thing I normally do (small conclaves with furtive, bitter individuals spurting bile at humanity is more my speed), but the affable nature and genuine pleasantness I found at this even was too much for me to ignore. Part of the reason I wrote this article is to try and help others in SK who may not really get what Mannam is to understand what waits in store for them. When I first heard about the group, I’d asked friends and co-teachers if they’d ever heard of it. None had. So I went, I experienced, and I came back alive, as well as happy. I’m writing to say that I had a great time with Mannam. If you’re looking for something to do on a Sunday, you could do far worse than head out to one of their shindigs. Check ‘em out on the Internet at http://www.mannamintl.org/.

Note:  After publishing this article, I had received a number of responses insisting that Mannam International has connections to a religious organization whose practices could be considered disagreeable to others.  While I still enjoyed my experience at the event I attended, and do not wish to unfairly label the attendees or workers there, in the interest of fairness and to foster informative discourse, most of those responses have been posted below.  None of the contents of this article are meant to reflect the opinions of Mae, our editor-in-chief. 

Toys Gone By

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You know what?  Barrels.

Image

It’s amazing to me, when I think about it, how much barrels had something to do with my upbringing.  Some of the happiest times of my childhood had something to do with barrels, and I remember them fondly.  The barrel was the menacing and relentless weapon of choice of the enraged ape Donkey Kong.  It was the container of sweet, orange fluid I would drink for lunch (Little Hugs.  You know what I mean).  And it was the centerpiece of one of my most fondly remembered toys.

I loved trains as a kid, which would prove to be a rather dubious statement if you had seen the way I treated them back then: neglected, broken, and on the floor.  Regardless, they held an endless charm for me.  One of the earliest trains I remember having was a Lionel O-Scale set, and one of the features that came with it was the Barrel Loader.  This, to me, represented the point of trains:  to get something from one place to another.

What was in the barrels?  What would become of the contents when they got there?  Well, this was make-believe, so, really, it didn’t matter what was in the barrels as much as they get to where they needed to go, get offloaded, and then re-loaded onto the building for another go-round.  Barrels, after all, were good things, with good, important stuff in them.  Whatever the contents, what mattered was that the train and the loader-guy did their duty to get the barrels where they belonged.

The brilliance of the toy is in its design.  Assembly was rather simple, and as I can recall, fairly sturdy in the hands of a six-year-old.  The piece did not necessarily have to be connected to the track.  The building is adorned with a number of molded decorations, such as a coil of rope, a mallet, a flight of stairs, and even a little shack that the workman “lives” in when he’s not on the clock.  Though these may seem insignificant – particularly since everything is one uniform shade of red or brown – they really actually add to the pretend factor. The little bits of detail nestled into the “background” of a toy really fueled my imagination.

The key element that really makes the piece stand out in my memory is its playability.  The problem with toy trains and small children is that the more elaborate the train becomes, the less kid-friendly it becomes as well.  Some model trains, after all, are meant to be set up and then simply observed.  The joy for certain collectors may be in arranging tracks and scenery in new and different ways, or sculpting mountain ranges and replicating towns and such, but a child’s first instinct is to get his/her hands on the thing and actually play with it, crash it into something, and cheerfully destroy its value as a collectable.

The Lionel Barrel Loader, on the other hand, clearly says “Play with me” in a sweet-natured tone.  There’s a big ol’ lever right on the side of the thing that’s the perfect size for a child’s hands.  The barrels are loaded into the bay up top.  You then pushed the barrel down the ramp, and then, by pressing the lever, had the workman shove the barrel into a gondola car waiting on the track below.  You did this as many times as you had barrels, and then you sent the train on its way.

This was a solid-red definition of simplicity, and I’m a bit astonished how easily I could fit the operation of the thing in one small paragraph.  This is because I remember being fascinated by this operation, which I would perform over and over again. This wasn’t just an articulated piece of plastic that dropped plastic into a car made of plastic; it was a workplace, an early 20th century establishment of industry had a schedule to keep, a place where things needed to get done, so I had to hop to it!

I’m not sure what became of the model train industry.  Oftentimes I would try to indulge in my enjoyment of the hobby, only to leave the poor things sitting broken and unused time and again.  Honestly, I think Lionel, Bachmann, and the others may have gotten sick of me.  Perusing different hobby and retail websites, I rarely ever see accessories that offered the interactivity that you see with the barrel loader, log loader, et cetera.  Of course, I’m sure that there are plenty of enthusiasts who would disagree with me, and rightly so:  The train I had was not necessarily a model train, but a children’s toy.  It was meant to be touched by clumsy hands and played with.  Play with it I did.  And I shouldn’t be so quick to write off Lionel – they have a version of the product listed on their site, this one fully painted, and featuring and exterior light!

Old school as I am, I may just have to upgrade.