In my mom's basement we still have the house and the barn and the garage and the camper and the houseboat. Everything but the houseboat was inherited from much older cousins, so I think a lot of it was wooden. My neighbor Laura had the castle, which was clearly the coolest.

And we used to have the ferris wheel, which played music and rotated and was awesome, and my mom sold it at a yard sale because she has no soul. Many years later she tried to get rid of just the garage because it's really huge and I vetoed it because, "Did we learn nothing from the ferris wheel?"

There was one LP figure I didn't like. It was this little kid with an angry expression and freckles and a baseball cap with a turned-up brim and he was clearly very mad about something. I have been told that a couple of times I started crying because he scared me so much.

I remember all this easily, but not what books we read in the 3(?) philosophy classes I took in college. There's a lesson there somewhere.

My mom's three older brothers decided to mess with Baby Sister's head one morning and snuck a dead field mouse into her shoe before she woke up. Luckily, she saw it before putting the shoe on, kept her cool and tossed it out the window, then proceeded to finish getting dressed and headed down for breakfast. The boys, disappointed that there was no girlish shriek from upstairs, craned their heads around to make sure her shoes were on, and she glared at them all and disdainfully stated, "I found the mouse." Gramma made the guys do extra chores when they got back to the farm after school.

It's just such overt pandering. I think there is a flag-burning admendment in the works too, but I'm not sure about that.

There was one LP figure I didn't like. It was this little kid with an angry expression and freckles and a baseball cap with a turned-up brim and he was clearly very mad about something. I have been told that a couple of times I started crying because he scared me so much.

I remember him! The Little People Bully!

Gordon had an orange body.

Someday, a zillion years from now, a generation of children will wonder why their parents sometimes yodel to themselves, "Gordon. Sooooooosan!"

Yes! He was so clearly a bully! How was he supposed to be fun? "I'm gonna play that he's beating up these other kids. Now he's stealing their car! Whee!"

Ooh, maybe he was there to get thrown into the castle dungeon.

the houseboat

That's the one I was forgetting!

There was one LP figure I didn't like.

Man I hated that kid.

All this Little People talk is taking me to a very funny ROBOT CHICKEN place.

It was this little kid with an angry expression and freckles and a baseball cap with a turned-up brim and he was clearly very mad about something

The Little People Bully!

He was always the evil one in our stories.

Someday, a zillion years from now, a generation of children will wonder why their parents sometimes yodel to themselves, "Gordon. Sooooooosan!"

Or NEEEEEEEEAAAAARRRRRR ....Faaaaaaaaaar!

I had an action figure once. Action Jackson was his name. Bold adventure was his game.