Back in the days when your faithful correspondent was a laddie there were four seasons. They were) in no particular order): baseball season, kite flying season, bike riding and rock fighting season, and yo-yo and spinning top season. This is not to say that we didn't play football, but our form of football was more akin to rugby than it was to college and professional football (the only sport that can make soccer look exciting). And we played, when our bikes had flat tires or our yo-yo strings were broken or there was no wind for our kites, forms of basketball such as "horse" that required skill instead of muscle or intimidation and allowed for no showboating.
Baseball season, of course, ran from April to September. Some kids went into Little League. The rest of us were content with playing ball in the street using parked cars as bases and having to interrupt the games to allow cars to drive down the street and using tennis balls instead of baseballs. We didn't need helmets or gloves. We had a stick and a ball and that was all we needed.
March, April and May were considered kite season. During those months one could run down to the local liquor store and buy a diamond shaped kite for 15 cents and a ball of string for 25 cents. Box kites cost 25 to 35 cents. During those three months there seemed to always be a kite in the sky, They weren't fighting kites or acrobatic kites. The kid who could get a box kite in the air was considered a hero. The idea of flight itself was magical. During a season one usually went through three or four kites since the kites were made of tissue and sticks and string.
Bike riding and rock fighting season went from May until September. When I speak of bike riding season I mean the fact of riding bikes for fun. not mere transportation. Rock fighting, meaning the throwing of rocks or dirt clods at the "enemy" kids really depended on the availability of rock and dirt clods and "pillboxes." Yours truly was lucky enough to live in an area were a freeway was being built, so rocks and "pillboxes" were plentiful, and the younger brother, Sir. Danny was unlucky enough to catch a rock in his mug resulting in a chipped incisor.
But the high point of the year at Nib Manor was yo-yo season, which, if memory serves correctly, ran through the winter. It was during the yo-yo season that the legendary Duncan company sent out their yo-yo men. The men, usually young though appearing old to yours truly, appeared on television, at supermarkets and schools, demonstrated the possibilities of two pieces of maple with a wooden axle and Egyptian cotton string. The yo-yo men demonstrated tricks of what at the time seemed to be almost impossible; Man on the Flying Trapeeze, Eiffel Tower, Atomic. The tricks, in memory, go on and on. And the yo-yo men made it all look so easy. Their message was that with a some practice any one could do the tricks, no matter race, gender or religion. The ever lovely Lady Nib was lucky enough to actually have a Duncan yo-yo man come to her school, while yours truly had to settle for watching the tricks on television. And despite the fact that it was the Duncan company (since sold to Flambeau) who sent out the yo-yo men, there was an assumption that a Royal yo-yo would work just as well.
The yo-yo was the way for a fat kid, a nerd kid, a brainiac kid, to show the the the mini-jocks in Little League or Pop Warner football that he wasn't a "spazz." At that less PC time a "spazz" meant spastic and thus someone who was less than physically elegant. Yo-yo eloquence was a solitary skill and thus one that was not always appreciated for what it was.
Recently your faithful correspondent saw a videotape of yo-yo tricks performed by a trio of young people using the Yomega yo-yo. It was impressive. Or to be more correct, it would have been impressive except for the fact that the yo-yoists were using ball bearing yo-yos instead of the solid axle yo-yos of old. The tricks were all the tricks used by the old Duncan men who only modified their yo-yos by waxing the wooden axles of their Imperials. Thus we see that, in a sense, as technology progresses skill regresses or remains the same.
This is not to say that the new generation of yo-yoists is lacking in skill. What it suggests is that their skill has not gone beyond those great biscuit slingers of old.
But whether or not the new generation measures up to the old, the important thing is (and was) that the yo-yo gives the loner kid the opportunity to show his or her stuff. in a physical way. The mastery of the yo-yo is, in a sense, a form of zen or the practice of Taoism; the bearing of what is and making the best of it.
Tomorrow: The idiocy of football.
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