I had a Irish mail which was made by murry?? [not sure] It was the hit of the neighbor hood. I rode it so much till it was worn out. Steer with your feet and propelled by pushing and pulling the lever too and fro. Great fun that gave me some big arms. The other strange yard toy that i had was [ Don't remember the name] a contraption that had two hoops that were kind of egg shaped that were joined parallel to each other with two flat pieces of metal that had a wide leather band on each for your foot to slide into and two other metal parts with bends in them that you would grab on with your hands. the narrow egg part was the top and the wider was the bottom where your feet would be strapped in [stand with your legs spaced apart and your arms out]. Deminsions were about 5' tall and about 3.5 wide. Once inside the ride you would be standing upright and inbetween the hoops. To propell the ride you would rock your body in the direction you wanted to go .Each time you would roll over you would shift you weight to the front and continue to roll. No steering . It would look kind of like you were doing a cartwheel within the ride. We had a big grassy flat area across the street and we could ride that thing from one end to the other. people would stop and watch the wierd contraption with weird kids on board. Any body remember these? great memories . 50 years later I'm still a kid at heart
Ride on yard toys from the late 50s
- Thread starter recumbentbill
- Start date
I too had an Irish Mail. I don't remember how old I was or how long I had it but it was stolen off my grandmother's back porch.
That rolling hoop thing sounds like fun;sort of like curling up in a big truck tire and having someone roll you (see To Kill a Mockingbird)
I ordered a thing from the back of a comic book one time based on the illustration that showed a kid driving a small tank. When it finally came all it was was a cardboard tube, like a box with no end flaps, with tank treads printed on it. You got inside the tube and crawled on your hands and knees to propel the thing along. No steering, just get out and aim it where you wanted to go. It lasted about as long as you'd expect a piece of cardboard to last.
Tom
That rolling hoop thing sounds like fun;sort of like curling up in a big truck tire and having someone roll you (see To Kill a Mockingbird)
I ordered a thing from the back of a comic book one time based on the illustration that showed a kid driving a small tank. When it finally came all it was was a cardboard tube, like a box with no end flaps, with tank treads printed on it. You got inside the tube and crawled on your hands and knees to propel the thing along. No steering, just get out and aim it where you wanted to go. It lasted about as long as you'd expect a piece of cardboard to last.
Tom
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How about a set of home made stilts? Had to mount up off the back porch railing. Once you got used to walking with them they made you feel 10 feet tall. A pogo stick was a lot of fun too.
buzzard
buzzard
Yeh I had some stilts too although not quite that tall. Forgot to add my pogo too. My pogo was not the stick type It was the type that you could see the spring between the two frame? members. This pogo could bounce better than the stick type . You could also bounce with no hands buy locking the frame between your knee's. One more low tech yard attraction I had was a super nice single rope swing . We would climb ontop of the swing set while holding onto the rope and swing off. At 8years old it was quite a rush
