What a wonderful story, and I think a valuable historical document. I grew up during that time. My parents were too stingy (or too sensible) to buy me most of those toys, although I did see commercials for them. But we managed to do things that were every bit as dangerous. I once found an old trunk in the neighbors attic that had a whole box full of bullets. We fired them all off by hitting them with a hammer. We also had managed to dig an underground tunnel in a vacant lot near the railroad tracks. There was nothing supporting it, and if it had ever collapsed we would have smothered to death. But nobody got seriously hurt, and we had fun.

Another thing I really wanted, but which my parents never bought, was a walkie-talkie. Try explaining the lure of that to a child today. "So this is like a cell phone, but you can only talk to one person, and only if they are fairly close to you. You can't access the internet or play video games, and it makes a crackling noise after each time you talk. And you wanted that because....?"