A Special Toy for the Next Generation

I wrote a birthday blog for my son Brett quite a while ago where I discussed his successful career as a child model. Read that here if you wish, it’s a cute one with pictures and he was a model child and a child model. At any rate, we were never heavily invested in his early career, and as soon as he started playing team sports, doing cub scouts, and going to birthday parties for friends, he opted out of the part time gig. (Much to the disappointment of his agent who was used to dealing with “stage moms.”)

Brett is now going to be 36 years old in two weeks, (this will have to count as his birthday blog which he ordered me to stop doing anyway,) and is a successful attorney, with a beautiful attorney wife, and a gorgeous young son of his own.

His heyday, and success – international success, was pretty remarkable in its time because we were based in Houston, Texas. But Brett had the bowl cut thick hair, big blue eyes, cherub face and beautiful teeth and smile, so he was in demand. He, as his agent told us one time, “had the look.” He had way more than his 15 minutes of fame that Andy Warhol said we all have.

That look was never more evident than when we got a call from the agent, breathless with a big score for Brett. A local manufacturing team had come up with a new toy, a giant LEGO, and needed a boy and a girl for the cover of the toy box. The agent said they went through 100’s of photos (headshots) and only had ONE choice, not even a backup, and that was Brett. They told her they hoped he had all his teeth. (He did.)

The toy was called BRIK, and Brett himself loved this toy so much, we bought a half a dozen boxes of it so he could build castles and the like. His sister Elissa loved the toy as did all of their friends. It was very popular for a while in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
Two funny stories about this toy: Brett’s aunt called us from New York City one day and said that our Brett was in the window of FAO Schwartz in New York City – on the box of BRIK. (The store is sadly closed now, but one of the most famous toy stores of all)

Another story, a friend of ours traveled to London and went to a toy shop there to bring her son back a gift from her travels – and there was Brett and the BRIK toy boxes – in London, England. We got a charge out of these stories, but Brett only earned his scale for the time and we bought our own toys. (He was invited to a huge BRIK-fest at our Galleria, as a special guest.)

At any rate, the boxes of toys were lovingly stored away when my kids outgrew them. I am a very sentimental person and save EVERYTHING that has any sentimental value attached to it. So I found these BRIKs in the attic because I wanted some toys for our visiting granddaughter to play with when she visits. She loves manipulating things, and will love these giant lego toys.

So I washed each and every BRIK toy we had to ready them for the next generation. I have two local grandsons who I know will enjoy these one day when they get a little bit bigger. They are all cleaned and cloroxed from their long time in storage, in anticipation of both Brett’s and Elissa’s sons playing with the toy their daddy and uncle graced the box of, once upon a time.