When I was maybe 6 or 7, there was a little girl that lived down the street from my grandparent’s house in Michigan. My grandparents had the coolest house. A 2-storey red brick with gabled roof that had a laundry chute from the second floor all the way to the basement, and a little iron door on the side of the house that opened to reveal a ledge which opened into the kitchen, where the milkman left his milk back in the day. They had morning glories on the back fence that gaped wide with the morning sun and were screwed tightly shut by noon. They had an apricot tree and honeysuckle, and an enormous screened-in porch with flat green carpeting. Around one side of the house was a swath of lilies of the valley, dear and secret. Across the fence, the neighbor owned a mob of ankle-high Papillon dogs.
Anyway, the little girl, whose name is lost in the back of my brain, had a Lite Brite.
I didn’t.
I coveted that Lite Brite with every bit of covetousness in my little-girl soul. It was the height of toy cool. She followed the patterns provided on the slickery black paper, but I knew I could do so much MORE with that Lite Brite. The magic of those little bright colored light pins. You could make a dragon. A train. Flowers. Fish! Not only could you make art, you could LIGHT IT UP!
I’m sure I must have begged for one, but for whatever reason, there was never one under the tree or in the birthday wrap.
After college, for my 25th birthday, my friends got me one. O joy! It became a prominent part of the living room decor, the picture changing to suit the mood or the theme of the latest party. It came to Sweden with us, but was quickly relegated to the attic, because we couldn’t afford to have it run on a transformer indefinitely. I just found out that modern Lite Brite’s are battery-powered. It’s back on my wish list. 🙂
Last night, I picked up Martin from a friend’s house and it was dark, cold and clear when we got home. Martin asked me how many stars there were. Lots, I replied, Too many to count. We looked up at the sky. The light pegs of Orion were gleaming low to the southeast, a cosmic Lite Brite overhead.
Create Your Own: Lite Brite Designs Online