How I Learned to Love Cardboard During the Pandemic https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/magazine/cardboard-toys.html How I Learned to Love Cardboard During the Pandemic It was a key prop in my childhood games. Now I’ve decided to use it to make toys for my quarantined toddler. Credit...Photo illustration by Derek Brahney By Tomás Q. Morín March 30, 2021 My friends and I were crazy about professional wrestling when we were kids in the ’80s. Body slams. Drop-kicks. Figure-four leg locks. In our yards, we spent hours emulating these moves. Our imaginations supplied the raucous crowd and the pageantry, inserting us into the rivalries and alliances we saw our favorite wrestlers perform on TV. One of us would be Ric Flair, someone else Dusty Rhodes, another kid one of the many Von Erichs. There was just one thing missing: the coveted championship belt that was often at the center of all the drama. In my neighborhood in the small town of Mathis, Texas, most of us were poor and couldn’t afford to buy the replica belts that were sold in stores.