Child's Play

Not All Research Consists of Words and Maps and Numbers

I found the Bunny Band in an antique store in Arundel, Maine last week. No doubt it was some kid’s cherished possession, and if that now-adult was to hold these slightly scruffy wide-eyed rabbits in her hands today and set them a-drumming and a-cymballing, no doubt the Bunny Band would instantly transport her back to the highlights of her childhood faster than an entire box of Proust’s madeleines.

I used to have a friend who was clairsentient: she could hold an object in her hand and the long-dead person and/or people who owned the item would suddenly appear to her.

She could never go into an antique or thrift shop because she’d have entire populations haranguing her as soon as she walked through the door, all telling their stories at once like a bunch of hangry preschoolers trying to claw a scrap of attention – or a snack – from their harried teacher. She also couldn’t drive past certain houses because she’d spot the ghost of a previous resident looking out behind a moth-eaten lace curtain. Over the years she added thousands of miles to her car from taking countless circuitous routes.

I have a touch of clairalience, which is when you smell something that isn’t there. One day in the dead of winter, I was driving down the road when out of nowhere the heady aroma of lilac bushes in early June filled the car, accompanied by an image of my grandmother waving the hand that was missing the halves of two fingers as the result of a factory accident.

I think we all have a touch of clairsentience when it comes to the physical stuff of our childhoods. Even if your brother’s Hot Wheels Mustang isn’t the exact same one that you teethed on as a toddler or the Barbie with a punk haircut isn’t the one you took your scissors to when your best friend suddenly stopped talking to you, the mere sight of these childhood totems often evokes a whole slew of long-buried memories that might just help you to solve a small puzzle about the people you’re researching – or to understand something to put your own life in better focus.

The talismans [talismen?] of my own childhood came in the form of the plastic stuff that permeated the 1970s. Everything from Easy-Bake Ovens and Lite Brites to Suzy Homemaker turquoise-and-white appliances. I often spot these items in antique shops and thrift stores, and usually – but not always – pass them up.

My own Bunny Band madeleine is a Panasonic Toot-a-Loop, a hard plastic donut of a radio.

It’s even in the collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Toot-a-Loops only received AM radio, which these days is pretty much extinct in my neck of the woods, but in the 70s top 40 stations and “beautiful music” a/k/a Muzak ruled the AM radio roost. Talk radio wasn’t a thing then. But in 1971, my Toot-a-Loop was perennially tuned to WABC 770, a top 40 station out of New York City, 22 miles away as the crow flies, but light years away from the fraught reality inside my house.

My husband had heard me rave about it for years. A few years ago he splurged on one for my birthday, but it sat on a shelf until this week. In the wake of the Bunny Band, I cradle it in my hands and wait to channel my childhood.

All I receive is static.

I twist the Toot-a-Loop into an S shape, the only way to reach the dial inside. I hold it up to my ear like the 1930s-era phone that my lilac-scented grandmother had. In 1971, some kids slipped the radio on their wrists as a bracelet, but instead I threaded it on the handlebars of my Schwinn Lemon Peeler.

I touch the radio’s blemishes and scratches and remember that I only turned on my Toot-a-Loop when I was outside the house, never inside. Back then it represented freedom, which makes me realize that I did what I had to do to survive back then, grasping at a bevy of plastic objects that were predictable, sturdy, safe. Anchors in the storm.

Then this floats up: my grandmother never smelled like lilacs. In fact, she reeked of the cooked cabbage and kielbasa that were constantly boiling away on her stove.

Where do the lilacs come from? Was it my other grandmother? Or some other long-suppressed memory about someone or something else?

I’m confused. But that’s okay. The Toot-a-Loop yields its/my secrets while reminding me that sometimes the best discoveries can’t be found in books or online databases. And it adds to my looooonnnnnnggggg list of things to research…which is a good thing.

A very good thing.

The Takeaway: Think of a favorite item from your childhood. Watch a YouTube video, read a couple of articles about it, and if you don’t already have the original tucked away in a closet somewhere and it’s not too expensive, go ahead and splurge on it. Then take some time to just sit with it. Listen to the voices and images that come up and see if they can steer you into a new direction in your research, or give you a new perspective on the other lives you’re poking around in.

What toy or item from your childhood can send you into a Toot-a-Loop-induced swoon? Leave a comment and tell us about it.

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