Constructing Castles

There are only a handful of toys from my childhood that really stick in my mind. There is the Atari 2600 and the hours spent trying to beat Raiders of the Lost Ark. There is the Oscar the Grouch radio. There is of course the action figures. I have to tell you, my brother was the clear winner in the action figure collection, he had GIJoes and Star Wars. I had Crystar. My guess is none of you have even heard of Crystar, but these were all mine.

I can remember playing of the floor near the large sliding glass backdoor. Justin would have a few of the cooler looking GIJoes, with what ever guns we could still find for them. Alongside these special military agents, would be Luke, the cloaked Jedi model and C-3P0 and R2-D2. On my side would be these blue and green figures, roughly the same height as the others. They were see through, like they were made of gems, carried swords and one of them, my leader, had a gold bracelet I have made from a broke jewelry chain. The figures was not why these were among my favorite toys, it was the dragons they rode, a crystal one and a lava one and most importantly, the castle.

This castle was three floors high and made of thin blue crystal. It had the towers on either side and a drawbridge door. The throne room was on the top floor and we imagine the traps the would stop enemies on the floor below. This was the center of my Toy kingdom.

Just looking at that castle, in fact any castle, was enough to fire my imagination. So, I did my research, how were they built, what were they really defended by, how did you stop enemies in the castle? I learn about portcullis and boiling oil. Halls with arrow slits and oubliettes. My outlets for these fascinating contraptions and designs found their way into the maps I would draw for my Dungeons and Dragons game and the Lego constructions I would build. It was fun to see the terror in a players eye, when they are trapped in a deadly hallway, or the crinkle of worry in a parents brow when you show them how you trap the lego man so you can pour boiling oil on them.

One of the great joys of being a parent is getting to play with your kids, and with their toys. My kids got a variety of toys this Christmas, but for me one of the highlights has to be the Lego set Shelby got. It was a Kingdoms castle set, an official castle that didn't even exist when I was collecting Legos. She agreed immediately that I could help her build it.

The four plastic bags sat on the table, each labeled with a large black number. We found the number one and opened it up. Shelby had the Legos and I had the instruction book. I would tell her the pieces she would need, while teaching the the nomenclature I used to describe Legos, two by two, thin, black. I could then show her the picture and check her work. Step after step we built.

We didn't do it all in one setting, I wanted to savor the moment, the building. We did it across about three days, with her doing one bag on her own. When we were done, though, we had something great. A prison on the top for the captured princess, knights with horses, a portcullis, which open with a chain and yes, even a cauldron to the top, which contained flaming oil.

When we were done, this black castle set on the dining room table for a couple weeks. Every time I would pass it, I would smile, thinking about those castles that came before it and those I hoped would follow it.