Thanks Charlie, I almost forgot...

Yo-Yo Season

It was a beautiful Spring day.  Much too nice to have been cooped in school all day.
We were sitting at our desks looking at the clock.  Two minutes to go.  The minute hand slowly inched its way to the 12 and the last bell of the day rang.  3:00 o'clock!  Schools out!

We jumped from our desks and began to race out of the room.  "Slow down there," said Sister Mary Catherine, "and keep the noise down."
"Yes Sister," we replied, and continued racing out the door and down the stairs to the front door.
They were right there on the sidewalk in front of the school.  The yo-yo guys.  Two of them.  They had a yo-yo in each hand doing simple stunts like walking the dog, sleeping, around the world, and other such tricks.  Then one of them put his second yo-yo in his pocket and started doing the complicated tricks.

The boys stopped dead in their tracks and formed a large group around the yo-yo guys.  The girls just giggled and kept on walking.

We watched for about a half hour.  The yo-yo guys let us play with the toys for a while, and we tried to duplicate some of their tricks.  After they left we hung around for while talking among ourselves about yo-yos before we dispersed in little groups and went home.
The timing was just right.  It was Friday afternoon, and most of us would be getting our allowances tomorrow morning.  It didn't take a genius to figure out what that money would be spent on.

Bob and Rich met Lee and I at our house right after breakfast.  The Woolworth store on Polk Street wouldn't open for an hour yet, but we would wait by the front door and talk yo-yo talk.

As soon as the store opened we rushed in and went straight to the toy department.  There they were!  Brand new yo-yos, attractively displayed in colorful cartons right on the end of the toy counter!

There were the ten cent cheapies that just went up and down.  The there were the twenty five cent ones that you could do tricks with.  Extra strings for these cost a nickel, and it was wise to carry an extra string with you, because they came untwisted rather quickly if you didn't know what you were doing.

A few fifty cent professional models were at the top of the display, but no one I knew ever bought one of those.

We all got the twenty five cent models and an extra string and went to the playground to start practicing.  It had been a year since we'd had a yo-yo in our hands, and we needed the practice.

Monday morning every boy came to class with a bulge in his pocket.  Sister Mary Catherine took one look and just rolled her eyes.  The girls in class giggled.

At recess, every boy in the school had his yo-yo out.  We were standing in groups of three or four, demonstrating our prowess with these fascinating toys.  Besides making them go up and down, the best most of us could do with them is make them sleep, or spin at the end of the string for a few seconds before bringing them back up.  A few were able to perform what's known as walking the dog.  This was like making them sleep, but you let the yo-yo roll on the sidewalk a short distance before bringing it back up.

Some boys could actually do an around the world, twirling the yo-yo in a large circular arc while spun at the end of the string.  Being able to do this was a sign of real expertise, but many who tried ended up in the school nurse's office with a big lump on his forehead.

Yo-yo season was in full swing for about a week.  Then it would begin to taper off, and after about a month, our yo-yos were put away and until next Spring. 

Of course by then we would have forgotten where we put last year's yo-yo, and have to buy a new one.

Noel

Edited August 6, 20214 yr by birdguy

Just noticed that your stories almost exactly parallel Jean Shepard's stories of his childhood growing up in Hammond, Indiana.  The start of your story reminded me of "Lost at C".....about his walk on water in algebra class!😁

Yo yos were great fun until getting whacked in the noggin!  Then came the "Eskimo yo yo" which drove me crazy.

Did anyone ever try the "Shoop-Shoop Hula Hoop?"  It was nothing more than a plain vanilla hula hoop with some sort of beans in the hoop. I tried and tried, but I never manage to keep the darn thing up and spinning around my skinny hips!

I did however eventually get pretty much 'pro' with my yo-yo!

Yeah, Jean Shepherd inspired to write of my own boyhood.  Next week I'll tell you the story of my own Scut Farkas the bully.  Every school has one.

Hula Hoops were made for women's hips, not men's or boy's.  I could never get more than about 3/4ths of a revolution.

Noel

I won the hula hoop contest at my next door neighbor's birthday party.  I was pretty good at it (at a younger age).  Could not even attempt it now.

Our grammar school had an annual yo-yo contest, which was conducted indoors in the hallway, administered by a teacher. Duncan had a little booklet that described the rules packed in with their more expensive yo-yos. Kids tell me the contest still happens.

The Vice Principal would wheel a gigantic blackboard on casters out in the hallway for a scoreboard. Oh how you would cringe if bad scores were up there under your name. And it was very much encouraged to jeer the failures and cheer the proficient. No kid was foolish enough to complain about peer reaction, that would have made you a real loser!

3 contests: grade 1 and 2 (6 and 7 year olds), grades 3 and 4, and grades 5 and 6 (10 and 11 years old).

The little store in the hallway which sold supplies and snacks through a window, always had packages of yo-yo strings the year around, 3 per envelope.