I'm the first to admit that I can be an old fogey that reminisces about the good old days or the almost good old days. I also admit to spending hours today playing games on-line which was impossible in those almost good old days.

One of the things I loved were paper dolls. I have no idea on how many I had, but it would have created a small community. I'm sure my parents were happy but the cost of a paper doll book with wardrobe was a fraction of the cost of a real doll and a real doll wardrobe.

Any future predictions of my embracing minimalism were not apparent.

My paper dolls were extremely well-dressed. Their wardrobe choices exceeded my four-person family's clothes together. Not only did they have the clothes that came in the book with the doll and her wardrobe, my mother and I would create more slacks, blouses, suits, dresses, skirts, PJs, nightgowns. We also created clothes for the dolls adventures as archeologists, nurses, doctors (I was an early feminist who made women dolls doctors when there were few).

They were colored either with colored pencils or Crayolas. My mother never skimped on making sure we had all the art supplies we needed.

There was on difference between home made paper doll clothes and the clothes that came from the book. The tabs. In our clothes we could make the tabs longer which meant the dolls were less to end up in their undies as their clothes fell away.

Paper clips could compensate for the shorter tabs, but then I had to make up some story about why the paper clip was part of the outfit.

Not only were my paper well dressed they were well loved. Winter days I would spend hours after school creating stories for them to act out. We were in ancient Greece, the Wild West, on a ship lost at sea, an acting company putting on a play, written by me of course. 

I suppose I'm lucky to have lived in the almost good old days, which were far simpler than today. Yet, don't try and take my laptop and an internet connection from me in the almost good current days. I'm lucky to have lived through both.