Before I married them, The Big Girls (Charlie’s daughters by his late wife) had all but one of the sets of Richard Scarry’s Puzzletown. They had Dr. Lion’s Medical Center (featuring Flossie the patient), Farmer Alfalfa’s Farm (featuring Mooy the cow), Mayor Fox’s Town Center (featuring the dashing Sgt. Murphy), and Lowly Worm’s Rail and Roadway (featuring, surprisingly enough, Lowly Worm). Don’t ask me why they didn’t have Huckle Cat’s Family Cottage, because I don’t know. I do know some of the pieces of the ones they did have were missing because they vanished down the heat registers during spirited play.

They’re all available for purchase on eBay.

But that isn’t what I’m posting about.

When The Big Girls were too big to play Richard Scarry with me, #4 Daughter was just big enough. We spent hours building bizarre variations and combinations of the sets, and playing scenarios with the figures. Lowly Worm was always a hero, and so was Sgt. Murphy. Mooy could swing either way. Flossie was always up to some mischief.

The figures who came with the sets weren’t enough for the large-scale productions we usually came up with, which often featured kidnappings and train hijackings. We gathered small figures from wherever we could scrounge them and pressed them into service.

Jojo the monkey repeatedly hijacked the train, sometimes with Flossie’s connivance and sometimes with her as an innocent victim.

And there were these.

Deer Pure and Evil

One of these deer is Pickles and one is Freckles. I think the one crouched to pounce is Pickles. She was always eating the garden and holding up banks and whatever. Freckles was pathologically shy. Eventually, they evened out a bit, with Pickles less gangsta and Freckles less dysfunctional.

And the dog? The ghastly dog is Bruce, the Collie Without a Flaw.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What games did your main character play as a child?

MA