Curiosity Kid (Part 2)

An illustration of a character from a story; also, an illustration of illustrations
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

        Earlier this year I put up a post called "Curiosity Kid" in which I talked about some of things that mystified me as a child and wanted to know more about.  These were incidents that might have been somewhat embarrassing to my mother putting her in an uncomfortable spot.  There were other instances that were probably more of a nuisance to my mother or things that were done surreptitiously.

The Science Experiments:

        Kids are scientists at heart.   When we are young we are always experimenting to see how things work or what will happen if we do something that we probably shouldn't be doing.   And for the latter, most of those somethings are things we definitely shouldn't be doing.

         Rarely did I have a toy for too long before I began dismantling it to see what was inside and how the darn thing worked like it did.   Mechanical toys were my favorites.  Once the outer layer was broken through, I would make great discoveries such as finding that the Japanese recycled things like tin cans and old magazines to manufacture the toys they sent to us kids in the U.S.  This was the pre-China years when most cheap products were "Made in Japan".     After the dismantling, I would be without a toy and left with a pile of useless scrap that could not be reassembled.   Another toy in the garbage.

         My most major accomplishment of destruction for the sake of curious discovery was the beautiful bouncing horse that my sister and I got for Christmas one year.  I was about 4 or 5 at the time.   The horse was made of sturdy plastic and suspended by heavy duty metal springs to a metal framework.  Not only could one bounce on the horse, but there was also some sort of mechanism which after pulling a string the horse would make realistic horsey sounds.  My mission was to find out how those sounds were made.

          Lacking any patience for careful dismantling--there seemed to be no easy way to take the horse apart to get to its innards--I took the most logical approach to doing the job.   I used a hammer.  With great energy I bashed through the plastic to find an odd little device that was something like a miniature record player.  After having liberated the mechanism from the hard plastic shell of the horse, the device now only played a weaker more draggy version of the horse sounds until it eventually quit working.   No horse sounds, no bouncy horse.   Consequently we never got another horse like it.

        Did childhood curiosity ever lead you to dismantle toys or other items?   Do you like to find out how things work?    Has any of your children, grandchildren, or other children in your life shown a predilection for taking things apart?