Pastor’s Podium

We’re in the midst of the frantic Christmas shopping season. Relax, catch your breath, and enjoy the season. Here’s a reminder and encouragement to try our local merchants first for gift-giving. You’ll be impressed with how much is available locally! But you won’t find many of these toys, which are from a list of the most insanely dangerous toys from the past.

First is the Gilbert Glass Blowing set, which would encourage kids to heat glass to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit to soften the glass and with their bare hands try a number of wildly irresponsible experiments. The same people who offered that also offered the Gilbert Kaster Kit, which allowed you to create your own army of tiny metallic soldiers or animals or other things. That sounds neat until you realize it involved casting them out of molten lead by yourself. What could possibly go wrong?

In 1843 there was the Stevens’ Model Dockyard Locomotive. Up until that time, toy trains didn’t move because the technology didn’t yet exist. The Stevens Company created the first toy locomotive that actually moved. However, it moved because it had a real steam-propelled engine that required kids to pour kerosene or alcohol into the train and then light it.

More recently, there were the PowerMite working electrical power tools such as a circular saw and a hand drill with extra blades and bits. These were labeled children’s toys because they were smaller than regular size. If you didn’t like that, in the 1930s and 40s there were electric toy stoves and ovens. They could be plugged in and heated up, but they were small. What could be put in there other than your brother’s pet or some peanuts? I’ve seen pictures of the toys and most had burn marks on them and you can only imagine what those came from!

Remember the Gilbert guys from our first two examples? They’re back with the Gilbert Chemistry Set. This might look safer — if more boring, but it contained 56 chemicals that included potassium permanganate which is poisonous and can also make things catch fire. Also, ammonium nitrate which can be used in homemade bombs. The first page of the manual showed how to blow up small things with gunpowder but warned not to try on a large scale, which my 10-year old self would only want to do more! Here’s a toy that would today be accompanied by a visit from Homeland Security!

There was the Austin Magic Pistol. The balls were fired by mixing “magic crystals” and water and by “magic crystals” they really meant dangerous chemicals. The calcium carbide and water created a literal explosion in the back of the toy gun every time the small children’s fingers pressed the trigger and launched the ball up to 70 feet.

Maybe the best was the Atomic Energy Lab which came with real samples of uranium (radioactive) and radium (a million times more radioactive than uranium). If that wasn’t enough, some experiments in the manual also required kids to handle blocks of dry ice, which has a temperature of minus 109.3 degrees Fahrenheit and is recommended to be handled only with gloves. No gloves were provided.

These historic toys sound like an old Saturday Night Live routine, with toys such as Johnny Switchblade, the Bag of Glass, the Police Confession Kit or Doggy Dental, offered by the Irwin Mainway company. But these were real!

I am reminded of when Jesus said, in Luke 11:11-13,“Which father among you would give a snake to your child if the child asked for a fish? If a child asked for an egg, what father would give the child a scorpion? If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” More often than not, we would ask for the snake or the scorpion.

God loves us and doesn’t give us what we ask for, which probably is harmful, but gives us what we really need. As we approach Christmas, we remember the greatest gift of Jesus Christ and the new abundant life and forgiveness he offers us for free. Gifts that will never break or let us down or harm us.

This Advent season as we look forward to remembering that greatest gift of all time and look forward to when Jesus will return, take time to relax and enjoy the good gifts God has given you including friends and family.