Retro toys and creativity are hits with young and old at library’s makerspace

SPRING HILL

For oldsters who have bemoaned in recent years that they share no common ground or language with their grandchildren, retro diversions are sweeping divergent generations together again with believe-it-or-not results.

In the new “makerspace” at the West Hernando/S.T. Foggia Branch Library, kids 4 to 16 — and some grandparents, too — are whooping and shouting “Look! Look at this!” as they wave about their Spirograph works of art, or sharing fist-bumps over the cabin they just built with Lincoln Logs.

“It’s insane,” chortles digital initiatives librarian Brittany McGarrity, as excited as the youngsters who have taken joyfully to toys and crafts from the 1950s through ’90s.

“They come in here for the robotic Legos and Super Nintendo, but they stay for these,” McGarrity said, gesturing to the older-timey stuff. “I think it’s because they don’t do this at school; they…