Toys

DEAR ABBY: Our German shepherd, Leah, was playing with a hard rubber ball that was about the size of a tennis ball. Somehow, the ball slid down her throat. I tried to dislodge it by grabbing and pulling it out. When that didn't work, I tried the Heimlich maneuver. That didn't work either. By the time we got Leah to the veterinarian, she was dead. Abby, please tell your readers to never let their dog play with any object that fits into its mouth. If it fits, it can lodge in the throat.

Bertoia's Toy Box Treasures sale is still a month away, but with the auction catalog already posted online - and September crowded with early autumn sales - now might be a good time to see what the three-day, 2,100-lot event will offer. Dominating the event, scheduled Sept. 21-23 at Bertoia's gallery in Vineland, N.J., is the collection of the late Paul Ingersoll and his wife, Mimi, both of Bryn Mawr. "Collections" might be a better term. The Ingersolls collected not only vintage and antique European trains and automobiles, but toy banks, American tin toys, papier-mâché figures, and wood carvings, including skittles sets.

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," Sigmund Freud supposedly once said. Whether he ever uttered the exact phrase, the observation is dead-on. We're often way too tempted to see things as symbols, even when we should be keeping our eyes on the actual ball. Or, in this case, Buckyballs and Zen Magnets – two "adult desk toys" that are the latest subject of one of today's most overused symbolic frames, Big Government vs. Small Business, spun by conservative politicians and right-wing Zen masters of indirection such as Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin.

A cavalcade of collectibles will be up for bids next week, with banks, advertising, pottery, and vintage toys offered at two sales Tuesday, and glassware, that multipurpose medium, offered at an online sale that ends Aug. 6. The vintage toys will be offered by William Bunch Auctions beginning at noon Tuesday at the gallery at One Hillman Dr., Chadds Ford. The 235 lots feature pressed steel, cast iron, and Matchbox vehicles; Steiff and other stuffed animals; windups and battery-operated figures, including a 23-inch-high Great Garloo monster by Marx ($100 to $200)

Bullet casings lined the ground next to a black Charger as Juan Rivera grabbed a video camera to document the scene of the "shooting" and the "evidence" his forensics team had just scoured. "Guys!" he yelled, before whistling and waving with authority, instructing the investigating team to clear the scene. The crew obliged. Rivera moved about the scene in Gloucester Township, focusing on areas of interest: the shells, a handprint on the window, a gun. It was his first time recording a "crime scene.

There is something to be said about having a motor. Stephanie Toy's never seemed to stop running, through fall, winter, and spring. Toy will graduate from Moorestown with 12 varsity letters in soccer, basketball, and lacrosse. She earned all-American status and a scholarship to Notre Dame in lacrosse. As a senior, she was first-team all-conference in all three sports and The Inquirer's South Jersey Player of the Year in lacrosse, leading Moorestown to a 26-0 record and the Tournament of Champions crown.

There is something to be said about having a motor. Steph Toy's never seemed to stop running, through fall, winter, and spring. Toy will graduate from Moorestown with 12 varsity letters in soccer, basketball, and lacrosse. She earned all-American status and a scholarship to Notre Dame in lacrosse. As a senior, she was first-team all-conference in all three sports and The Inquirer's South Jersey Player of the Year in lacrosse, leading Moorestown to a 26-0 record and the Tournament of Champions crown.

The merit of such a bold compliment - a tad brazen on its face - was never hard to find. Just watch Steph Toy rifle shots with either hand. Watch her make crisp passes. Watch her spin and juke, a veritable Barry Sanders of girls' lacrosse. And if you can't watch her, take a look at Moorestown's stat sheets over the last four years. It quickly makes sense why Quakers coach Deanna Knobloch tells anyone who will listen that "Steph Toy is without a doubt the most athletic player we've coached in my 21 years at Moorestown.

This whole incident is madness. The school officials should have just told the boys not to bring the gun to school. The toy pellet gun hitting the girl occurred off school property. The girl was uninjured, and is not complaining. "Corpus delicti" (plural: corpora delicti; Latin: "body of crime") is a term from Western jurisprudence that refers to the principle that it must be proved that a crime has occurred before a person can be convicted of committing the crime. For example, a person cannot be tried for larceny unless it can be proven that property has been stolen.

The maker of K'nex toys has long manufactured many of its products in America, and it pushed that as a key marketing message in 2007, after safety concerns arose about toys made in China. But the family-owned company in Montgomery County decided it needed to do more as the U.S. economy slumped, and it chose to move one of its key operations from China to the United States. "It started as a moral decision," K'nex Brands L.P. chief executive Michael Araten told the 375 people who attended a "Made in America" program presented by the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce at the Hilton Philadelphia City Avenue on Wednesday morning.