January 28, 1958. A date which will live in infamy. Okay, that's a little over-the-top. It is a date which will live in toy-famy. (New word: "toy-famy" meaning something important and memorable in the history of playthings. All rights reserved.) It has been a half century since the familiar plastic building block called Lego, was patented. The first Legos were made of wood and created in the workshop of a Danish guy named Ole. Some of my family is originally from Denmark. My grandmother, in fact, was a great Dane. Not the dog, you scamp. I mean a terrific person. Anyway, we honored our Danish heritage by buying several tons of Legos over the years.

I don't want anyone to get all weepy, but I didn't have Legos as a kid. I had Lincoln Logs. (I always thought we should've named a dog Lincoln. That way you could tell the kids to "Go pick up the Lincoln logs" and give it a whole new meaning.) I also had Tinker Toys. One of my older brothers called Tinker Toys "The Erector Set for Wimps." Remnants of an Erector Set were scattered around the house by the time I came along but my dad would never spring for another complete set. In later years, my much, much older brothers would talk about the cool moving bridges and pulley-operated gizmos they had created with that Erector Set. When I got old enough to actually use it, there were two metal brackets and a piece of string left. I could make wind chimes and that was about it. So, that left me with Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs. To be honest, when I was quite young, my mom would just put some measuring cups, empty Butternut coffee cans and our tin, multi-part coffee pot on the floor and let me go at it. (She did that again just last summer when we were visiting and I'd gotten annoying...."Here, Joel, see what you can do with this stuff." It kept me busy for a couple hours.)

For our kids, though, Legos were the thing. Occasionally, they would get those box sets like the Star Wars collection. Based on how they move, the little Lego figures always look like prime candidates for knee and hip replacement. The box sets were fine but the kids really liked the big buckets of assorted Legos. That made all the building and creating, truly theirs. To this day they still will build stuff now and then. The building part of Legos is fun and imaginative. The putting-away part was never greeted with the same enthusiasm.

In my years as a father of Lego fans, I've discovered two things. First of all, while Lego sets do tend to shrink over the years, the actual Legos never disappear. They pop-up between the sofa cushions...under the bed...rattling around inside the dash board of the car...being sucked through the tubes of the vacuum...in the backyard after the dog's been outside, don't ask...just about anywhere and everywhere. That reality leads to the next discovery.

The word Lego is a combination of two Danish words: Leg Godt or Play Good. (The Latin root is thought to mean "I Put Together.") We reported this on FirstNews, Tuesday morning, so it must be true. But, I always figured Lego meant something totally different. If you've ever walked into your own bedroom or bathroom or kitchen or living room...barefoot...and stepped on a couple of the building blocks, you know where I'm going. In those many moments, I've shouted "LEGOOOOO!" at the top of my lungs. Like Kirk yelling "KAAAHHHNNN!" I was not thinking "play good." For me, Lego will always be Danish for words I can't put here in a family-friendly blog.