My friend Kathleen decided that being a lawyer would be her ticket to riches so she decided which law school she wanted to attend, and packed up and drove there without bothering to apply. She almost got me drowned canoeing the Rio Grand at floodstage, until we were rescued by park rangers just in the nick of time. she later moved to the great Northwest and became a slumlord (her words) and when the Great Father called her home, she was in the process of starting up an airline.
That, my friends, was one hell of a woman - one remarkable human being.
I recall my friend Kathleen knocking on my door upon occasion with a bottle of tequila in hand. She'd bawl out, "Let's get drunk and tell lies," and so we would, late into the night. She would regale me with stories of her work with profoundly disabled children, cackling wildly as she described a child who, for attention, would pop his eyeball out of the socket so that it hung down from the optic nerve. Gadzooks! Crazy! She'd laugh like a crazy woman through the telling.
At first I thought her heartless and cruel and later came to understand that her dark humor was a way of dealing with the otherwise horrific aspect of her work.
Kathleen survived diabetes and breast cancer, started a fishery, attended college without ever bothering to go through the troublesome processes of applying for admission, and tried money-making scheme after scheme in an unending quest to get rich, including smuggling onyx chess sets in from Mexico in the back of a rented cement truck. Unbelievable!
Once again, I am reminded of my dear, now departed friend Kathleen McGuire, of whom I have written in the past with great affection. A woman without fear, she lived life her way and and never played by the rules. What a gal!
Kathleen lived behind my garage leather workshop when I lived on Fredricksburg Rd in San Antonio back in the late 70's. Each year at Holiday time, when she knew what she wanted to get herself for Christmas (back then it was a new, high-tech LED watch - cutting edge and quite expensive at the time) she would get a job at a retailer long enough to qualify for the employee discount, buy the item on discount, and quit immediately. Did I mention she was cheap?
Kathleen may have invented re-gifting, as well. At this time of year she would cast an eye about her apartment, which she affectionately referred to as 'The Hovel', looking for an unused, no longer desireable objet' décor, perhaps an ashtray or such, that might be packed up and given as a Christmas gift to satisfy some seasonal obligation.
"Could'a knocked me down with a feather!" as my mother often used to say to express how surprised she was. You "could'a" done just that when we got a call from a magazine in Mumbai wanting to feature Lund and Company in an article about toy design. Where exactly is Mumbai? It may not even be on this planet!
In the past six months we have had inquiries from Mexico, Australia, France, the UK, Neptune, and even India as a result of the press some of our products have garnered this year. (Neptune - that's a joke, Sun! [sic][lol])
Actually, it was from the next planet out. (And that's another joke, bye the bye. Know what I mean, Vern?)
Back when we invented the internet we had no idea it was going to make the world and each and every person in it as accessible as if it were a little village.
"Back in 1963, Ronald Howes--the same man responsible for the invention of such childhood delights as Play-Doh, Spirograph, and the Give-a-Show Projector--created the Easy-Bake oven. Howes sold the idea to Kenner toys (now a division of Hasbro), which officially unveiled the first Easy-Bake oven at the 1964 Toy Fair. The toy that would win the hearts of generations of aspiring chefs quickly began flying off the shelves."
If Mr. Howes did indeed invent the Easy-Bake Oven, Play Doh, Spirograph, and the Give-a-Show Projector, he is the most unheralded of industry inventors and worthy of nomination and induction into the Toy Hall of Fame!
What other unheralded creators of iconic toys are yet unknown?
4. Good toys provide stress relief. Play is the perfect way to release the stress of school or social situations. Play can help a child get out of a bad mood through creating an imaginary world they control and delight in.
