My imagination got quite a workout when I was a kid. Stories were told without film or video. The only visual prompts existed in the pages of a book and I remember having access to a healthy collection of hard cover children’s books. One of my friends had a TV but we didn’t, so video stories were not a big part of my childhood.

Little Golden Books was the Disney Channel of the 1970’s. I totally remember the signature gold or silver coloured binding that came with every book. They had popular titles like The Little Red Hen, Henry and the Paper Route and Three Billy Goats Gruff. These were favourites that never made it to TV as far as I know. Other titles are more familiar today because they’ve been retold in video, tales like Hansel and Gretel, Marry Poppins and Cinderella. I also remember many of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. In hind site it’s obvious that the narrative got toned down a fair bit to ensure we didn’t get nightmares.

I don’t remember any family times of gathering round and listening to a story but I do remember a lot of that in school. I know that story reading didn’t happen when I was a toddler because I didn’t actually know any English until I started kindergarten. All of our conversations at home and among our friends was in low German and Little Golden Books didn’t translate into that language.

School was definitely a big influence in the stories I learned as a kid but there were a few other notable sources. One significant source of stories was church. In Sunday School we heard stories from the Bible every Sunday. The Bible stories often came to life using felt boards and puppets. Felt boards were interactive backdrops for felt people, felt buildings, felt animals, felt stars and felt angels. They moved around the board to illustrate the drama as it unfolded. On special occasions the Sunday School teachers would break out the sock puppets to take the action up a notch and get our imaginations going.

Although my Mom didn’t have an iPad to give me for entertainment, her version of that was the family record player. Many of the most loved stories were printed onto LP records. When Mom needed a bit of time she could put on a record and plant the kids around our large audio speakers. She would return to flip the record over when the first side was done but at least she had 15 or 20 minutes without us pestering her while the record played.

There was one more option for entertainment that I need to mention. It was a radio show called Children’s Party. I don’t remember how often it came on but it was hosted by Aunt Olly who was a legend among us and our friends. I didn’t know this at the time but her full name was Olly Penner and she caused quite a stir in the Mennonite community when she decided to establish a radio career outside of her home.

Aunt Olly would read to us from many of the story books I mentioned near the beginning but she also repeated some favourites that I don’t remember hearing anywhere else. They included Tall Fireman Paul, Big Red and Nikki Nikki Timbo No So Rimbo. That last one exemplified the favourites that definitely crossed some lines of political correctness. Nikki Nikki Timbo was a young Chinese boy who was so loved by his mother that she gave him the longest name imaginable. According to the story, Chinese tradition was that a long name signaled extra ordinary love for their child.. I don’t really remember the rest of the story but it’s fully recounted in the comments of a blog post about Aunt Olly if you want to Google it.

When I started writing this post I wasn’t sure how I’d fill the page. As I thought of one thing and researched it, another thing came to mind. In the end, I’m reminded that kids can be well entertained without iPads and TVs.

Photo from the CFAM radio website of Aunt Olly and her sidekick Gus