I don't always hit exquisite high notes with gifts on Valentines Day…many years I just grab cards and some kind of favorite candy and give those to the boyos. That's okay, of course, although not exactly exciting.
But this year, I feel like I nailed it.
I got Mark a heart-shaped box full of heart-shaped beef jerky bites. The bites had little slogans on them—"Want to meat up later?"—just like those traditional conversation hearts.
"No way!" said Mark when he pulled the dainty little cardboard heart from its gift bag. I knew he was pleased when he positioned the heart, just so, on the table, and took pictures to send off to other meat-loving men.
And then, I had seen an ad for a Lego-type model I could get, customized, for Jim. I uploaded a photo of Jim into the company's app, and they morphed that into Lego Jim. They sent me a photo of the prototype to approve, and a few days later, Lego Jim arrived in the mail.
I wrapped that up snugly in shabby-chic brown paper and tied a red bow on it.
Jim opened it on Valentine's Day morning, and stared at it, turning it in his hand.
"Wait," he said. "Is that ME?"
I nodded.
There was a pause.
Then, "I LIKE it," he said.
He assembled the little guy and stationed it in the basement, standing guard by his little clear plastic cases of Lego characters.
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There are things, when my kids were young, that I came to believe would be part of my life forever. Constant He-Man, Master of the Universe episodes was one.
Transformers clunking around were another.
And then one day, the kid says, "I'm tired of this," or, "These are dumb."
The toys or the episodes disappear, fade away.
Sometimes, they never come back.
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Not so Legos, though. About a year ago, Jim's interest in Legos rekindled. Now he has a man-cave full of streetscapes and earth-bound vehicles, as well as things that fly into space and beyond. He has purchased display cases, and Lego sets vie for importance with his books, DVD's, and video games.
He plans for super purchases, for maybe getting a really big set once he saves up enough cash. (Because Legos are pricey. Yee dawgies.)
This reconnection to a beloved childhood toy snapped into place as easily as...well, as easily as one Lego brick onto another. And why not? Plenty of adults love Legos, and time spent assembling a Lego creation is time NOT spent in front of a screen.
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I knew that Lego came from Denmark, but I didn't really know the whole story, so I got on the official website (https://www.lego.com/en-us/history), where I watched a charming video about Ole and Gerhardt Kristiansen, father and son, in Billund, Denmark, in the early 1900's. Ole was a skilled carpenter; he turned his avocation into a business, hiring journeymen, and turning out beautiful, admired products,—furniture and the like.
And then came the Great Depression. One by one, orders faded away, and Ole let his workers go, until he worked alone, and then, finally, there was not enough work even for him. After months of searching for a solution, he hit upon the idea of making wooden toys.
His first toys were pull toys, ducks on strings, or trucks the size of Tonkas, substantial things a kid could push around. But after he saw a particular kind of press, after he brought home several small wooden bricks that press churned out, the idea for Legos blossomed in his mind.
Ole's son Gerhardt joined him in the business, which they named "Lego," a blend of the words Leg Godt, which, in Danish, means "Play well."
And, in a bit of synchronicity, "lego," in Latin, means "I assemble."
From a home business to an international enterprise, complete with Legolands that zillions of people visit yearly…THAT was quite a journey, fueled by incredible creativity, determined drive, and a belief in things well-made.
Ole and Gerhardt envisioned their toys as sources of unlimited possibilities for boys AND girls; sources of stimulating, harmonious play; toys that would jumpstart imagination and creativity.
They thought Lego would appeal to all ages, too.
They were spot on, and their descendants are still in the business.
It's a pretty great story.
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Once, when Jim was little, we had a neighbor family with three wonderful girls. They were all very different: the oldest ultra-feminine and bookish, the youngest adorable and socially gifted. Leslie, the middle kid, was a thinker and a do-er, and she loved Legos. Because we always had huge bins of them somewhere in or near our living room, she liked to come over and play.
She built amazing things from Legos. But she had a major complaint.
"Girl Legos," she said, "are stupid."
This was maybe the early 1990's, and she was right: girl Legos presupposed that the hands that snapped them together weren't terribly…well, handy. Girl Legos had two or three main pieces, rather than an array of little bricks.
There was a lot of pink in play, too.
Maybe the toy-makers thought girls would rather use the finished project for imaginative play than build the house or car or whatever themselves.
If so, they were very wrong.
In fact, Leslie wrote and told them so.
I notice that now there is no real distinction between "boy Legos" and "girl Legos," and that sets one might suppose appeal more to females are just as intricate as any others.
I figure that's Leslie's doing.
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Because Matt and Jim are 14 years apart, I feel like we experienced almost two generations of toys between them. Matt, in grown-up life a skilled carpenter, builder, and fixer of most things, was always drawn to Legos.
When Matt was little, Legos came with an instruction booklet that showed how to build the pictured model. Then, in the back, it suggested other structures that the kid could build. One could buy loose bricks, too, if I recall correctly, and the builder kid could just take off, imagination-wise.
Fast forward 18 years or so, when James first discovered Legos. By then, there were themed-Lego sets. The first I recall is Vikings. I remember James getting a Lego Viking ship when he was a pretty young guy—four, maybe, or five,—and the model was quite a challenge to assemble. In fact, he got it when we were visiting my Aunt Dot and my cousin Kathy (James' godmother), and it took the three of us, the set spread out on the dining room table, instructions unfolded flat and smooth—it took the three of us women over an hour to get things assembled to the satisfaction of the young autocrat to whom the Legos belonged.
And there were no alternate suggestions for builds by then, either. A Viking ship was a Viking ship. If you wanted another Viking model, it was suggested that you buy another set.
Well, a kid could always build whatever he wanted, which Jim did, dumping all his bricks into a big bin, sometimes helped and encouraged by his big brother. They made some pretty awesome Lego structures, the two of them, both together and separately. (Quite often, the dad got involved, too.)
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Of course, cleaning up the Legos bricks—every single Lego brick—was the thing. Many of us parents had an auto-refrain that went like this: "Put those LEGOS into the BIN!" You could just pull a string and we'd bellow those words, four or fifteen times a day.
And, if a Lego brick got missed, and a barefoot parent stepped upon it…oh, the exquisite pain of tender sole of foot mashed into unyielding Lego.
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Jim's big bin of Legos traveled with us from house to house, city to city, until finally,-- about eight years ago, maybe,--he must have decided he was just too darned old for those…toys, darn it.
He took the bin to Half Price Books, and he sold the whole thing, reinvesting the money in books and films and video games...pursuits a grownup can proudly claim.
But just nine months or so ago, the clarion call of Lego sounded, and Jim realized that, as Ole and Gerhardt envisioned, the little bricks are not just the domain of children.
Legos are for everyone.
And so the collecting, once again, commenced.
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We like to go to the annual "Think Outside the Brick: The Creative Art of Lego" exhibition at the Columbus, Ohio, Museum of Art. The Ohio LUG (Lego Users Group) helps to put this on. They create a model of the city, with architecture that's easy to recognize; with favorite restaurants, brick-built parks, and a river that flows through.
The exhibit fills a large room, and we inch around the display, exclaiming. There's a pizzeria we know; there's an ambulance speeding down Broad Street. High on top of a recognizable, iconic skyscraper, Lego Batman surveys the city.
Every year, the display is a little different; we look forward to spending a Sunday afternoon, studying it.
(You can find more information here: http://www.columbusmuseum.org)
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This past Christmas, many of my friends bought Lego bouquets for their grown-up daughters, who unwrapped the unique sets and enjoyed putting them together, and then displaying them. My mom-friends had pictures on their phones of those sets, which were, truly, pretty amazing.
And this past Sunday, paging through the Times, I saw an interview with Isabela Merced, who loves building Legos. "It's something that's nice to do on a Sunday that keeps me from staring at my phone all day," she said.
(Being a cultural ignoramus, I had no idea who Merced is. I looked her up on IMDb.com, and discovered she is famous for acting in such films as Transformers: the Last Knight, and Dora and the Lost City of Gold. She starred in a Nickelodeon series, too, and first acted on Broadway in "Evita" at age 10. She was born in Cleveland, so she's a good Ohio girl, and, at this writing, all of 23 years old.)
Also in the Times, there was a photo of a pediatric clinic in Tribeca; the outside was painted to look like Legos.
From the mind of a brilliant Danish man to ubiquity in less than one hundred years: it's really pretty amazing.
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James is busy redesigning his basement space so he has room to build, store, and display his Lego creations. As he works, he may utter quotes from the first Lego Movie.
"Honey," he might mutter, "where are my paaaaaaaaants?"
Or, depending on that day's dinner menu, he could carol, "It's Taco Tuesday!"
Many, many people know exactly what he's talking about when they hear those lines.
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I'm glad Legos have returned. They are quirky, clever, as simple as a face with two dot-eyes and a semi-circle mouth, as complex as a cantilevered tower standing bold against a basement wall skyscape. They're a symbol of something, Legos are,…of ingenuity, of the essential goodness of maker-ing, of the lasting resonance of a darned good idea.
I missed Legos without knowing I missed them. I'm awfully glad they're back.
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Here's the link, if you're curious, for the custom Lego figures: https://mycustombrickfigures.com/?syclid=f3915367-89ab-41d6-86d9-af3235f1e8f0
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