Found my old Etch A Sketch from 1987 in my parents' basement yesterday

I was helping my mom clean out their basement (which took forever, like 6 hours) and I found my old Etch A Sketch. The red frame was all scratched up but it still worked perfectly. I spent a good 20 minutes trying to draw a simple house and failed miserably, just like I did when I was 8. It got me thinking about how much more patience I had as a kid for this kind of thing, you know? Now I would rather just doodle on my iPad where I can hit undo. Has anyone else gone back to a classic toy and realized it's way harder than you remembered?

2 comments

2 Comments

angelas781mo ago

Found one in my grandma's attic a few years back and had the exact same experience. Thought I'd whip up a little landscape like I used to, but my hand was all shaky and the lines were just jagged messes. What actually helped me was remembering that the knobs need a slow, steady rhythm, not quick jerky movements. Once I turned the knobs super slow, like listening to a metronome, I managed to make a halfway decent stick figure. It's wild how much fine motor control we lose when we don't practice something for decades. Definitely made me appreciate the muscle memory I had as a kid.

alex_hall911mo ago

Yeah the shaky hand thing is so real. I had the same issue last year when I found my old Spirograph set from the 80s. I was so excited to crank out a cool geometric pattern and my circles came out looking like deformed potatoes. The weird part is I can still ride a bike no problem after 20 years without touching one, but my fingers totally forgot how to coordinate on those little plastic gears. It really made me think about how specific muscle memory is, like your hands just have their own little brain that forgets stuff faster than your legs do. Did you try any other old art toys after that, or did you just stick with the spirograph?