From marbles to baseball cards, generations of American kids have found ways to entertain themselves with simple objects.
In the 1990s one of the most popular fads was pogs. But the trend was short-lived. Pogs, in fact, so quickly vanished from the forefront of pop culture that most of today's youths don't know what pogs are.
Pogs, according to the Web site www.badfads.com/pages/collectibles/pogs.html, are simply milk caps — essentially cardboard disks. According to the Web site, pogs originated in Hawaii in the 1920s and were reintroduced in 1990 by an elementary school teacher. Pog stands for passion orange guava (juice).
Each pog had a picture on it. The pictures varied from the dancing raisin of Raisin Bran to pictures of school buildings.
They can be used to play a game with two or more players. Each person puts a certain amount of pogs in a stack, face up, and the object of the game is to flip as many over as possible, using another pog — or a slammer, which is made out of metal or plastic.
The popularity of pogs has fizzled out with most mainstream collectors. Game and hobby shops around the Salt Lake Valley haven't carried pogs in years. David Landa, owner of Dr. Volt's Comic Connection, said he hasn't sold them for nearly 10 years. At Hammond Toys & Hobbies they were giving pogs away as a Halloween treat about five years ago. But there are some who still love their pogs — even if there is no one to play with.
Kirk Dath, a 19-year-old Salt Lake City resident originally from New Jersey, became interested in pogs when he was about 8. Since he was already a collector of baseball cards, X-Men cards and football cards, pogs were bound to be the next item to add to his collection.
"At the time I was obsessed with the different pictures on them," Dath said. "Slammers, I thought, were the coolest."
Dath was always working on refining his collection. He would spend his $5-per-week allowance on a 12-pack of pogs. He would also con his 4-year-old brother, Jake, into trading his entire collection.
Jake Dath, now 15, said his brother was the one who got him interested in pogs. He said he thought they were "so cool" and loved the little pictures on them.
He amassed a collection of 30 pogs and three slammers, then began to covet one of his brother's slammers. So he was willing to make a trade. Kirk Dath said he would give his brother the slammer for his entire collection.
"Being little and loving that slammer, I made the trade," Jake Dath said. "I was happy for about a day until I realized I had no pogs to play with."
Kirk Dath's obsession for pogs tapered off when he was about 10, but he kept all of them — along with his other childhood collections — because of their sentimental value and the possibility of selling them. Now, however, he says he would not sell his pogs.
"I wouldn't get rid of them. There's a story behind each one," Kirk Dath said.
And he still has no interest in giving back any of his brother's pogs.
"His collection is in the basement, but he still won't even let me touch them," Jake Dath said. "He had the coolest pogs, but I had the coolest slammers — metal slammers that would flip a pile of 10."
Kirk Dath is now a student at Salt Lake Community College. In addition to being a closet pog lover, he is a snowboarding instructor during the winter.
E-mail: tdemasters@desnews.com