Amazing kaleidoscopes are as magical now as when I first had one decades ago in Daydreaming on the Porch

I look back many years ago to when I was a child, and I recall there was nothing that quite fascinated me as much as images in a kaleidoscope I had at one time. I must have been 8, I’m not sure which age, actually, but turning the tubular object and looking in the viewing end as if you were holding a telescope to the heavens, produced the most glorious geometrical patterns in a seemingly endless variety of shapes, colors, and combinations, each mesmerizing in their beauty and novelty.

Would there ever be such a pattern, such a mandala created by mirrors and objects in a tube in such sheer fits of serendipity, as the ones that appeared, and then dissolved into another with just a slight turning motion? Shake the kaleidoscope and new patterns and designs continued to flow into and out of each other seamlessly, infinitely.

Years ago before Amazon sold everything, I tried to find them in local toy stores, but with little success. But today it seems kaleidoscopes are seriously in demand by older people of a certain generation who buy and collect these unforgettable pieces of Americana and reminders of simpler days gone by, pre-Internet and video games. I’m guessing this is the case, as I don’t think kids today have even heard of kaleidoscopes.

Today they come in many beautiful casings, and are small objects of art in and of themselves. I’ve bought a number of them in the past year, and just today received a vintage reproduction kaleidoscope from the late Fifties, which would have been very much, if not exactly like, the one I had when I was 8 or 9.

I tried it out this evening, and the experience took me back to my childhood when playing with our toys, and running around outside, was hugely fun and endlessly entertaining. These toys included marbles, yoyo’s, sling shots, and cap guns (we were kids and didn’t know any better, and our favorites shows on TV were Westerns like “Gunsmoke” and “Bonanza.”)

Then, just as we were starting to tire ourselves out, we’d hear Mom call us — me and my younger brother — in for supper, and we’d race in the back door, each trying to be first inside, letting the screen door slam behind us, and dreaming of another day of fun and freedom because it was the weekend and there would be no school.

To me kaleidoscopes were the most magical of toys that briefly fired up my imagination. Today I am just astonished as I look at the colorful, mind-blowing mystical realms revealed by turning the cylinder and looking inside.

It’s a bit overwhelming, this beauty, even as I realize I can see much more fanciful and surreal images and videos on YouTube. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll take this old-fashioned wonder toy any day, and I’m grateful I remember them still from my youth.

I can easily see why people collect them. I can see why they are so prized. It’s all mysterious and delightful, even more so because an older man of 72 like myself, can still be thrilled and enthralled by a kaleidoscope. When I was young I thought they were only toys, but now I know differently, and therein lies part of the mystery.

Something else to consider as well. As a kid growing up in the Fifties and Sixties, I had a more unclouded vision of the beauty in those elegantly complex, geometric designs and patterns produced by my kaleidoscope. I approached such things with curiosity and innocence.

Today, I am apt to seek meaning, and to look into the religious and symbolic significance of mandalas, which these kaleidoscopic images remind me of. There are close parallels, obviously.

It takes effort and research, and I am a novice at this subject of kaleidoscopic art. There’s a lot to find out and discover.

Now I know I can find them online. But I’m very picky. For the past few years, I’ve had an on and off again interest in kaleidoscopes. But now my interest is keen. But now Then,

I recall that years ago, I was shopping for Easter candy and toys for my nephew and niece, and found kaleidoscopes in the Easter toy section of a store, amazingly, and bought three of them, including one for myself. It was an inexpensive and flimsy object, and I have no idea what happened to it, but what sights to behold inside. The old sense of wonder was rekindled immediately.

My niece and nephew didn’t seem too enamored of them. I thought they would be as fascinated as I was at their age seeing those designs and colors, but who knows, maybe it’s a generational thing.

Where does this lead me? I don’t know, but I think I am going to have to do some more reseach. There’s a lot out there on the subject. I have a dozen of them now, as if I am collecting them. But I feel like a kid again looking into them, and have even been having some luck taking pictures of some of the images with my phone camera.

Maybe that’s what they are for: to reawaken the childlike sense of curiosity that has gradually been lost over the years, and to rekindle an interest in the never-ending search for unexpected beauty and harmony in seemingly the most unexceptional things and places.

For a closer look at some kaleidoscope images, here’s an album of photos I took recently.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/camas/43xn05W0Hs

Kaleidoscope from Wikipedia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleidoscope