Local big shots talk about their favorite toys, then and now.

When we heard that President George W. Bush''s favorite book is a children''s story called The Little Caterpillar, we decided that we had for too long overlooked the significance of people''s favorite playthings. Determined to rectify the situation, we ran the original Toy Stories last year.

In it, readers learned that Carmel mayor and retired spook Sue McCloud''s favorite childhood toy was a phone she rigged up with her neighbor. Secret communication-of course! Clinton-administration White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta liked building little roads and dams with his Tonka truck. Infrastructure improvement-mais oui! Attorney and MIIS instructor Bill Monning loved his skateboard, feisty activist Barbara Bass Evans was hell on the wheels of her roller skates.

This year, like so many production houses, we''re launching the sequel to the original Toy Stories. May it not be a flop, may it shed some light on our neighbors, and may it remind us-one and all!-to remember to play.

Michael Houlemard

Baseball fan; bookworm; Executive Director of the Fort Ord Reuse Authority

What was your favorite toy?

According to my mother, from the time I was able to read I was always a fan of baseball cards and books. My father played professional baseball and I was fascinated about the players, and memorizing the information on the backs of the baseball cards (especially players that my father knew). Despite playing lots of baseball when I was young, I didn''t quite manage to make it to the "big leagues."

I was always intrigued by books, particularly adventure novels and the classics (and sometimes comics as well!). I was one of those who would sneak a flashlight under the covers and read after the lights were out. I think I still have my copy of Oliver Twist that I received as a birthday present when I was 10 or 11, and my baseball card collection is mostly still with me, although most of the collection is in five or six large boxes in storage.

Best toy you never got?

I dreamed about a slot car racing set, but (given my five siblings) there as never enough room for such "extravagances" at our house.

Favorite toy now?

My racquetball racquet that I use five or six times a week.

What''s Your greatest accomplishment?

Accomplishments can really only be judged to their greatness by one''s peers. Given the demands of my current role at Fort Ord, every time I find a few extra minutes to spend with my fabulous wife-that seems to be the "greatest" accomplishment these days.

Judy Pennycook

Horse lover; community builder; businesswoman; teacher; outgoing Monterey County supervisor

Favorite toy then?

As a child my favorite toy was my collection of toy farm animals and cowboys that rode horses, drove wagons or played in replica cow towns of yesteryear. I made intricate mountain ranges out of my blankets and assembled villages for the people and animals to live and play in. In the summer I took all my toys out to the garden where I dammed up waterways and created riparian corridors for my villagers to explore. Essentially, I learned how to make rural communities.

Still have it?

Yes and no. I don''t have my original set, but my husband and I have created a magical winter village. Each year we add to it, and after 10 years we have created the Dickens village all aglow.

This year it seemed as though urban sprawl was threatening Tiny Tim''s country cottage and way of life. However, with careful planning on the part of my husband Jonathan Battey and his 12-year-old daughter Lindsay Battey, new urbanism principles appear to have prevailed.

Best toy you never got?

I was a blessed child. I pretty much got what I hoped for. Although my family had modest means, I didn''t have extravagant taste.

The one thing that I always hoped for yet never received was not a toy but a horse. Every birthday, Christmas, graduation, etc., I had but one thing on my wish list: HORSE.

My father said, "I always wanted an elephant and I never got an elephant, and you aren''t going to get a horse." So without fail, I was forever presenting Dad with elephants: glass elephants, bronze, and wooden elephants in all shapes, sizes and colors. But alas, without fail, no reciprocal horse.

Two decades later when my daughter chimed in with the same request, I made sure we had our own horse.

Greatest accomplishment?

Having raised two wonderful children to adulthood and now being able to marvel at their accomplishments as well as having found and married the most wonderful man, my supportive husband Jonathan Battey, the love of my life.

David Ligare

Ship builder; rocket scientist; painter

Your favorite toy as a kid?

I think that my favorite toys were plastic and wooden models of ships and planes and cars. I really obsessed over putting them together, painting them and then playing with them. Two of my favorites were models of the HMS Bounty and the TWA rocket to the moon at Disneyland. I don''t know what happened to the Bounty but when I was about 11 I filled the rocket with match-heads and lit it. It was supposed to shoot off but it just melted on its little pad.

Best toy you never got?

The best toy I never got was a bow and arrow. Since I tended to be an odd combination of spacey and cavalier it was probably a good thing. Also, the boy down the street actually shot an arrow through his own hand. I saw it happen. It was very cool.

Favorite toy now?

Believe it or not, I think that my favorite "toy" now is a 12-foot yellow stepladder. It''s very useful in the studio, you get a great and odd view from the top (which you are warned not to sit or stand on) and also it''s a wonderful metaphor.

What''s Your greatest accomplishment?

Being in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Ralph Senensky

Hard worker; near-octogenarian; Hollywood television director (Star Trek, The Fugitive, Mission: Impossible, The Partridge Family; Barnaby Jones, Hart to Hart, Dynasty and more); local theater director (Randy''s House, at Carl Cherry Center until 12/21)

Favorite toy?

I don''t remember having favorite toys. When I was younger we played softball, but I wasn''t avid. I did have a bicycle, and beyond that I was kind of nerdy. I always had a such a busy schedule. I was a good student, and I had Hebrew school and piano lessons and paper route...

Best toy you never got?

Oh God, there must have been-it was before my aunt moved to Philadelphia so I must have been...10, 11, 12. I decided I wanted a movie projector. And then for Hanukkah I got one, but it was a hand crank and they had these very small reels for cartoons. But I wanted something that would show Gary Cooper and Joan Crawford movies, instead of these little cartoons where you had to crank them by hand.

Favorite toy now?

My computer! I have a Mac with a wide screen and I do everything in it. I have a digital camera so I take photographs-just purely avocational. I take photographs and then use pictures to make own greeting cards-birthday cards, Christmas cards.

I''ll be 80 in May. Staying busy-those are the magic words. Keep moving.

Susan Goldbeck

Roller skater; hell-raiser; attorney; PG City Council member

Favorite toy as a kid?

My favorite toy was a pair of metal roller skates, the old-fashioned kind with the key. I always loved playing outdoors (still do!), and skating gave me the fun of being out in the sunny Southern California climate almost year-round. There was the thrill of speed and the risk associated with landing on your kiester, which I often did. Even the worst knee scrapes, with scabs on top of scabs, wouldn''t keep me off my skates.

The skates eventually became the wheels for homemade orange crate scooters, which the neighborhood gang and I used for nearly a year. We would challenge the other kids to a street game, kind of a combination chariot race/bumper cars. Needless to say, I was the leader of the pack. In my teens, the skates took on yet another life as we made our own primitive skateboards by nailing the skates to 2 x 4s.

Best toy you never got?

A ''65 Mustang convertible.

Favorite toy now?

Morrie Fisher (just kidding!).

What''s Your greatest accomplishment?

Being a good mother and having a strong, loving relationship with my daughter. This is the accomplishment I am most proud of.

Sergio Sanchez

Homemade toy maker; remote control artist; SEIU organizing director; Salinas City Council member

Favorite toy?

I lived in Mexico most of my childhood, in Guadalajara, in the state of Jalisco. I lived in a very poor neighborhood and there were no resources there to get toys. You had to get creative. We used to make darts out of the ice cream bar sticks. We would make the back of the dart with paper and put it onto the stick, and put a nail or a needle as the point. You make a gun out of the same piece of wood, and with rubber bands you can shoot the dart out of the gun, too.

It was stuff that you find laying around, stuff people throw away. You''d buy a couple rubber bands and make stuff out of it.

It was about surviving and eating rather than toys. We didn''t ask for them, and we didn''t get them. So you make your own.

There was one more, whoever the people were who had shoes-I''m not dramatizing it, this is the way it was-sometimes the sole of the discarded shoe would be worn but the heel would still be in good shape. We''d cut off the heel, make a circle in the dirt, put coins inside the circle and try to knock as much money out of the circle. The circle would be really big-10 to 12 feet in diameter-so it would be really competitive.

I tried to teach my kids how to make the toys, but they are used to the Nintendo. It was kind of sad in a way. But it''s okay.

What every kid had-you always had in your pocket-one thing every kid had was a sling shot. You make it out of a branch and the tongue of a shoe. That was your tool. The poorest kids used it to kill birds to eat. I wasn''t that poor. I never ate birds. I never killed birds, either. We''d use it to break glass bottles, or for target practice.

Best toy you never got?

Eventually, my dad stated traveling to the border. He started working across the border for the railroad company. He bought us an electrical train. The one thing I always wanted was an electrical train and eventually, I got it.

Favorite toy now?

Anything that''s electrical. I like anything remote control. I have 300 remote controls. When I sit down to watch TV, I have three different remotes. I have a fan that I can turn on by a remote control. I love gadgets. I''m a gadget kind of guy.

Greatest accomplishment?

Being bilingual. Learning to communicate with people. Even when I was finally able to order my own hamburger. It''s still very rewarding that I''m able to communicate with people. I''m very proud of what I did.

I came here when I was 11 years. It was a lot easier for my brothers to learn English. They were younger. I have seven brothers. They merged into the system and were able to speak it right away. For me it was more of a challenge.

Jerry Smith

Chess player; Soledad Prison spokesman; mayor of Seaside

Favorite toy?

A chess set. It was given as a challenge from my mother. I''d never seen a chess set. [The challenge was if he learned how to play, she''d give him $20.] It was the greatest gift my mother gave to me because I learned how to play chess, and it''s a passion now.

Zan Henson

Duck rustler; surfer; environmental attorney; Monterey Peninsula Water Management District boardmember

Favorite toy?

When I was 6 or 7 I got a complete cowboy outfit from hat to chaps and everything in between. Of special delight was a two-gun holster filled with gleaming silver cap pistols, and black leather wrist cuffs that my mother had worn when riding in the 1940 Rose Parade. They were just like Hopalong Cassidy''s. We had a flock of muscovey ducks in our backyard in La Canada, California that I would herd, when I wasn''t in the midst of a shoot-out.

Best toy you never got?

A Daisy BB gun.

Favorite toy now?

9'' long Pearson Arrow surfboard.

What''s Your greatest accomplishment?

Parenting three wonderful daughters, Charlotte, Kate and Erica, while being the advocate in several appellate court decisions that defined the threshold at which an environmental impact report must be prepared, what constitutes an adequate general plan, and what it means when the transportation plan of a community is "correlated with" the land use plan; and still surfing after reaching 50.

Paul Allen

Vacuum cleaner cowboy; frustrated drummer; member, with partner Patrick Whitmarsh, of U.S. Sailing Team

Favorite toy as a kid?

My favorite toy when I was very young was the vacuum cleaner. I would jump on and ride around as my mother vacuumed the house. Later in childhood I loved anything to do with flying. Gliders, model rockets, kites. I liked riding things, so therefore the vacuum was a cheap ride. The vacuum cleaner is long gone and the gliders and kites have grown to a size that accommodates a passenger.

Best toy you never got?

The best toy I never got was a drum set. One of my mentors is Animal from The Muppets, and I always had a blast playing my friends'' drums. My parents then and my girlfriend now are very adamant about not letting me have a drum set, for obvious reasons.

Favorite toy now?

My favorite toy now is definitely my sailboard. Windsurfing is a huge adventure with incredible speed, acceleration, maneuverability and commitment. Throw an 8-foot wave in the mix and it''s the time of your life and a great way to cross-train.

Greatest accomplishment?

Being a part of the U.S. Sailing Team.

Riane Eisler

Chess player; grandmother; author of international bestseller The Chalice and The Blade, Tomorrow''s Children and The Power of Partnership (due out in paperback in early 2003)

Favorite toy when you were young?

I was born in Vienna, Austria and my favorite toy was a doll, a large doll that said "mama." But the story attached to it, that''s a sad story.

When the Nazis took over I was a little kid. My father was taken away by the Gestapo, and by a miracle my mother obtained his release. But after that, of course, every effort was made to try to get us out. One day I came into one of the rooms in our home and I saw that my doll was lying on a shelf with things to be packed, to be sent away. Not to be sent to where we were going, but to be given to somebody. Because everything was being confiscated from Jews. So my parents were trying to sell everything to have some money.

I was told by my mother tearfully that that doll had been picked by somebody who was helping them, and they had to give it to them because they were helping us by buying things so we would have some cash to emigrate with.

I loved to play chess with my father when I got older. It was really a bonding thing. I remember that I was fascinated by the chessboard, by the queen and the king...you know how children''s imaginations are captured. But I think what fascinated me the most was the idea of thinking a few moves head, which I learned in that game, which a lot of people don''t have, and chess is a wonderful game for learning that.

Favorite toy now?

I thought of my grandchildren when you said that. They''re not toys, obviously, my grandchildren, but for me the favorite toy is from day to day watching my grandchildren''s joy in learning. I''m learning so much of the core of what it means to be human by watching these lovely children who have the blessing of parents who treat them with respect.

Greatest accomplishment?

I base my books on my research over what is now almost three decades using a new methodology called the study of relational dynamics. It''s really a study of the possibilities of human society that identifies patterns that have not been seen before. That''s my major contribution: defining the difference between the domination model and the partnership model.

Ila Mettee-McCutchon

Monopoly player; retired Army colonel; mayor of Marina

Favorite toy?

A Monopoly game. I was an only child and I could get the kids, two older and one younger than I, from the next two houses together to play. I seldom won, and the younger kid always cheated, but it was fun. We usually had popcorn and sodas during the games.

Best toy you never got?

A TV. We finally got one, but only after everyone I knew already had one.

Favorite toy now?

My red convertible.

Greatest accomplishment?

Finding and marrying my best friend and having an intelligent, independent, beautiful daughter.