Written by Caleb Rummel
To begin, I am 22 years old. Whatever a particular young woman with whom I spend a lot of time may say, I am not 8 years old. That said, I really like toys.
You may say, “Of course, the photographer likes gear and calls them toys.” That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, as Woody so clearly defined it, child’s playthings.
Some of my favorites include my Nerf gun, yo-yo, Rubik’s Cube, Silly Putty and Hot Wheels. These things have held a special place in my heart for a long time. It is not my intention to hold on to a past that is gone but to keep a spirit of simple joy. I don’t need an iPhone to keep me entertained when a ball-in-a-cup will occupy me for half an hour.
Entertainment is a great, but not the best, purpose for hanging on to these old pastimes. I find them incredibly relaxing. A lot of these involve some sort of repetitive motion that’s soothing. To mash a ball of Silly Putty in your hands or brainlessly spin a Rubik’s Cube is therapeutic. Even if you don’t think that would be the case with toys, I’m sure you have something you do that’s calming: biking, running, fishing, going to the batting cages. Toys allow for another form of release in the same way.
One way I am very childlike with my toys is I think they allow me to be epic, if only for a moment and if only in my mind. This summer, I went to Disney World and got for myself and my best friend double-ended lightsabers. We have had the most intense duels in the dorm. I also got a wand on that same journey to Orlando, the Elder Wand, no less. There have been too many times that I’ve run around the Bison office yelling “Expelliarmus!” at my co-workers to make their pens fly across the room or “Petrificus Totalus” to make them fall out of their chairs. As I said, epic.
I say all of this not to just tell you about how I relax or to say what I do is better than what you do. I say this to encourage you to be not afraid of keeping around some of the things from your childhood if they serve a good purpose. If you still put together Legos and K’Nex or pretend you are the Flash as you sprint the 100-meter let the childlike spirit come in to you and free you of your adult worries. Eight-year-old Caleb may still be in 1996, and that’s where he needs to stay, but he didn’t have any worries, so his visits are welcome.
CALEB RUMMEL serves as the photographer for the 2010-2011 Bison. He may be contacted atcrummel@harding.edu
