All I ever Needed to Know I Learned From My Erector Set

I consider myself fortunate to have grown up in the era when the A.C. Gilbert Company of New Haven was still in business. For you less fortunate younger folks, in addition to their famous American Flyer train sets, the A.C. Gilbert made an amazing line of toys such as telescopes, microscope sets, chemistry sets and, best of all, the Erector Set. Everything I have ever needed to know in life I learned from my Erector Set.

The Erector Sets of my time are in no way like the watered down, safe, versions that can be purchased for exorbitant amounts of money today. My set included a real plug-in electric motor with enough exposed gears to make a modern-day government regulator pass out on the floor. It had lots of sharp metal edges and an entire tin full of small screws and nuts that could be swallowed with little or no effort. Further, there was not a single warning label telling you not to stick your fingers where they don’t belong. I guess the A.C. Gilbert Company believed that kids were smart enough to figure that stuff out on their own and if they weren’t then they would learn from their mistakes.

My Erector Set came with a thick book showing you how to make an amazing array of fun projects. You could build anything from a giant Ferris Wheel to powerful cranes and engines that would all actually work, all by bolting together all the different pieces that made up the set. On the Christmas morning when I got my first set (I added more sets as time went on) my father got down on the floor beneath the tree and "helped" me build the biggest project in the book, the Ferris Wheel. Actually, I didn’t get to do much besides sit and watch, so after a while I wandered off, leaving him there on the floor, and played with some other toy. I guess that was OK since he didn’t seem to notice I was gone.

That Ferris Wheel sat under the tree for several days before I got up the courage to dismantle it and start building things of my own. I soon had built all the projects in the book. Far from being the end of the fun, it was, in fact, just the beginning. Over the years, as I grew up, my wonderful Erector Set was almost always in use. I found I could design and build just about anything I could imagine. Trucks and trains, planes and rocket ships, bulldozers and tanks and a myriad other wondrous toys were all made and disassembled in turn. Along the way I learned all about gears and levers as well as absorbing all sorts of mechanical knowledge that I have used extensively over the years. Most importantly, I learned about planning and perseverance.

As I grew, parts of my set found their way into science projects for school and a mechanical lock for my "fort" down in the woods. Screws were commandeered to repair broken appliances and the screwdriver and wrench found their way into my first toolbox. I’m not at all sure what finally happened to my beloved Erector Set. In the end it probably just melted away like the last snows of Winter under the warm Spring sun. I’d like to think that somewhere there are still pieces of it holding up some shelf or keeping a treasured lamp from coming apart at the seams.

I had other Gilbert toys as well. There was the chemistry set that was set up in my bedroom right under all the multi-colored spots on the ceiling. Most of us boys had chemistry sets back then and there was always the rumor that some guy in the next class or across the hall had the secret formula to make dynamite. Somehow I was never able to locate that formula, but that didn’t stop me from trying, with some very interesting (read as smelly and messy) results. I’m not sure if some of those spots ever came off that ceiling.

I also had an A.C. Gilbert microscope set. That opened up an entire world of micro-exploration. Back in those days we were allowed to explore on our own without much supervision as long as you were home by dinnertime. This allowed me to do things such as hang off the bridge at the old Witch Hazel plant to collect stagnant water from the millpond and to climb over the metal fence into an abandoned tungsten mine on my quest to find specimens for my microscope. It also allowed me to collect a variety of stuff my mother considered "yucky" and to keep it in my room in jars. Of course all this was done in the name of science so she couldn’t complain.

The only Gilbert toy that I can remember coming with any sort of dire warning was my telescope. It was very clear about not looking directly at the sun. Of course, being a boy, that warning made me want to look at the sun even more. Luckily they understood boys, and how they thought, so included right beneath the warning was a diagram showing how to reflect the image of the sun off a piece of cardboard. Many hours were spent outside on cold winter nights looking at the moon and planets. It even came in handy when I was old enough to date. I would lure some unsuspecting young lady outside on a cold night to see the moon and because it was so cold we would have to cuddle together for warmth. I wonder if the folks at A.C. Gilbert knew that their telescopes could be used to further the study of biology.

That telescope was eventually passed on to my son but the rest of those fantastic sets are now long gone. Today we would refer to such toys, if you can call them that, as educational. We didn’t think of them that way when I was young. We just thought of them as fun and if by some accident we learned something, so much the better. In retrospect, we did learn a great deal without even knowing it. Thanks Mr. Gilbert.