The fanfare surrounding Barbie’s 50th anniversary this week brought a flood of memories for me. I came into the world just a few years before Mattel’s iconic doll did, and while I can’t recall exactly when I got my first one, I remember her clearly. Mine was not the first model, the one that came with the one-piece, black-and-white striped swimsuit, bangs and ponytail. My Barbie sported a brunette bouffant hairstyle, and my sister Julie’s doll was blonde. From the time I was six or so until I reached nearly seventh grade, my major source of entertainment, aside from reading, was “playing Barbies.” My best friend Deanna and I would spend hours just setting up our dolls’ elaborate and elegant home. We didn’t own one of those fancy houses marketed by Mattel but instead developed our own multi-storied creation across beds and bookshelves, crafting furniture from whatever was handy and fit our needs and imaginations. There was one whole summer (or maybe two) when we played “Barbies on the Oregon Trail,” which handily coincided with my intense consumption of every fiction book in the local library’s children’s section related to that subject. Our wagons, made of shoe boxes, Tinker Toy wheels and wire coat-hangar ribs for the canopy, were pulled by papier-mache oxen through our yards while our dolls endured all sorts of dramatic trials and tribulations. Of course, my sisters and friends also enjoyed the dolls just for the vicarious pleasure of modeling the unending assortment of outfits and accessories one could buy. I remember some of my favorite Barbie fashions as clearly as my own dresses. Early on, Julie would frustrate me enormously by piling on as many pieces of clothing on her doll at once as she could — pants, a skirt, a dress, then a sweater and maybe a coat. I REALLY couldn’t appreciate her fashion sense at all, but a few years later I could see that she had merely predicted the layered look of my middle-school years. What cracks me up now is the reaction of the nuns at my parochial school when we girls started bringing our Barbies to school to play with at recess. The edict quickly went out that while we could play with the dolls, under no circumstances were we to undress them (which of course took all of the fun out of it). It seemed they were concerned that the boys might be exposed to those naked and shapely forms. Of course, the boys saw those same naked dolls at home where their sisters played with them, but at school I guess there were standards to uphold. My own girls had their collections of dolls, clothes and accessories (my husband was not at all fond of stepping on those tiny stilettos lurking in the carpeting). Jenny even received an elaborate Barbie camper for her birthday one year, which I swear I spent more time with than she did, trying to get it unfurled to play with or closed back up again . . . it nearly took the skills of a mechanical engineer to accomplish. I’m not so sure that little girls today play with Barbies as much as my generation or even my daughters’ peers did. I certainly don’t see much advertising for them, and displays at the toy stores don’t seem as extensive — at least for the “regular” dolls — as they once were. I wonder if the biggest market isn’t aimed at the collectors, now, seeking those limited-edition, fifty-dollar (and up) dolls in the plastic cases and Bob-Mackie-designed clothes. Ah well, I’ll bet Barbie still holds plenty of appeal for little girls with lots of imagination and a love of fashion. I guess I’ll find out someday if I have a granddaughter or two of my own to spoil! Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader