Memoirs of a Worldly Guy
It was September of 1938 and the various different games of marbles were being played at Sunalta School when a young man strolled onto the school grounds doing remarkable things with a Yo-Yo. We had all seen a Yo-Yo before but this fellow was different. He was nearly six feet tall and as thin as a rail and he was doing things with the spinning top at the end of a string that made us all stop and stare in wonder. When he was in the centre of the schoolyard he stopped as a bunch of us left our games of 'knuckle down' and 'holey' and crowded around to to see what was coming next.
'Hi, guys! My name is Dave, and I work for the Cheerio Top company,' he said.
'Give him some room!' said one of the group. As we edged back the stranger threw the top forward and up in a large circle around and behind him. As the circle finished and the top reached bottom he flicked his wrist and the top snapped back up into his hand.
'What's that called?' I said.
"Around the World" he answered blandly as he continued with his stunts. 'There are basically eight moves that form the basis of all yo-yo stunts; I can go through them if you like.' There was a chorus of affirmative replies.
'Okay! First of all there's 'The Sleeper'; he threw the top downward and held the string motionless as the top spun at the bottom of the string. He flicked his hand upward and the top shot up into his hand with a loud snap.
'Then there's 'The Creeper'; he flung the top out along the ground and let it spin on the ground momentarily before giving it a tug and having it race back to his hand at ground level.
'Around the World' you've already seen and it's fairly simple,' he said, circling the top once more.
'The Breakaway', he said and threw the yo-yo out to his side and let it swing back in front of him and out to shoulder level before reaching across his chest and letting it snap back to his hand.
'Around the Corner' is a bit trickier but not too bad.' He put the top to sleep at the end of the string then pushed his elbow forward and ahead of the string then brought his elbow up and out from his body suspending the top from his upper arm an inch or so back fom his elbow. He then reached back with his string hand and tugged at the string that was draped over his shoulder. The top spun back over his upper arm and he tugged it back into his hand.
'This is called 'Over the Falls'' He threw the top straight out from his body, tugged it straight back to his hand and without stopping it, snapped his hand straight down until the top came to sleep at the bottom of the hanging string. He let it sleep for a couple of seconds then popped it back up into his hand. There were a few murmurs of approval from the onlookers.
'Rock the Baby to Sleep' he said and pulled a sleeper up into a string tripod and let the spinning top swing back and forth in the tripod formed by the string. 'That's not really one of the eight basic moves, actually!' he added.
'This one's a little tougher,' he said, 'we call it 'Reaching for the Moon' and threw the top skyward and continued throwing it back up in the air several times before catching it. This generated a number of 'oohs!' and 'aahs!' from the spectators.
'You'll have to know this one if you ever enter a Yo-Yo competition but I warn you it requires a bit of practice. We call it the 'Three Leaf Clover'. He then threw the top straight up in the air, shot it straight ahead when it reached hand level, tugged it back and when it returned he snapped it straight downward before bringing it up into his hand. It was virtually a combination of 'Reaching for the Moon' and 'Over the Falls' but a hell of a lot harder to do than it seemed.
'My brother Joe is the Canadian Champion,' Dave said, 'he'll be on the stage next Friday at the Palace Theatre. If you want to see the best you'd better be there.' He finished his visit by handing out Yo-Yo strings from a bundle around his neck to all of the boys gathered around him. 'See you all next Friday,' he said with a wave of the hand as he walked away. He did see us all the following Friday and in the meantime we had all been practicing the eight basic moves religiously. We all suffered through the double feature until at last the footlights came on and the great Joe Young was introduced. He walked out onto the stage rhythmically looping not one but two Yo-Yos out in front of him. For the benefit of the rest of the audience he ran throught the eight basic tricks that would be required in a competition.
'I'm sure you'd all want to see something a bit more advanced,' he said to the audience. There was a scattered chorus of positive responses.
'Let's start with the 'Chinese Cradle''. He threw the top downward with great force then gathered up the string with his free hand so that he had part of it looped around each finger but with the last part of the string looped around his string finger so that the spinning top was hanging down into the hand-made cradle of string. After a few seconds he let the swinging top swing out of the front of the arch and fall toward the floor. All of the remaining loops followed in succession. He was rewarded with a loud round of applause from the audience.
'Walking the Dog' was optional among the eight basic tricks but Joe showed us a dazzling series of tricks that day including the 'Dog Bite' and 'In Your Pocket'. The routine that I tried to achieve however, but never accomplished, was the two-handed looping of two Yo-Yos which Joe repeated as he walked off the stage to loud applause.
I thought that I would have mastered the double looping of two Yo-Yos at one time in light of the relative ease with which I mastered the rest of the tricks. I have concluded however that unless one is naturally ambidextrous it may not be possible regadless of the time spent trying.
The 'Chinese Cradle' was a trick I managed to master eventually but it didn't earn me as much approval from my associates as my discovery of a method for making our own Yo-Yo strings! Yo-Yo strings were made of Egyptian cotton and could be bought from confectionaries in plastic packages for two strings for five cents.
Five cents may seem like a trifling amount these days but it was worthy of scrutiny then. Since most mothers kept needle and thread in those days it was not too difficult to get our hands on a spool of No. 10 thread. Here are my instructions for making your own Yo-Yo string:
The Yo-Yo will twist by itself now until you have a legitimate long-wearing string. All you have to do is to line up the thread ends, tie them together and make a slip knot the same as you would with a store-bought string.
Joe Young's parting words as he left the stage at the Palace Theatre were about the upcoming competition. 'Next Saturday there will be a competition at the Plaza Theatre for the Calgary Yo-Yo champion; come along and show us your stuff!'
We were all there the following Saturday to compete for the sweater. We had to agonize through a sub-titled foreign movie first before Dave appeared and asked for all interested parties to come up onto the stage. There were approximately twenty youths on the stage by the time the last one had left his seat; about a third of them had originated from the Scarboro district. Nearly everyone was able to do the simple basic moves so only one or two were dismissed by the time we had completed the first four moves. But Dave was the judge and was ruthless in his dismissal of aspirants who missed one-only attempts at 'Over the Falls' or 'Around the Corner'.
By the time we came to the 'Three Leaf Clover' only Harry Lewis, who was in my class at Sunalta, and I were still on stage.
'I'm going to give each of these boys two trys at the 'Three Leaf Clover' Dave announced to the theatre audience. 'You go first,' he said, pointing at me. Fortunately, I managed to get through the trick without error.
'You're next,' he said, pointing at Harry. Harry's nerves were still a disaster area and Dave stopped him halfway through his first attempt.
'Sorry to stop you,' he said but your first clover leaf was only about halfway to the top. It has to go straight up from your hand. Try it again!'
Harry started again reluctantly but realized that he was under pressure to produce. His first leaf was perfect, returning to his hand level without looping and he shot the top forward for the second leaf confidently but when he pulled it back to his hand he overshot and the Yo-Yo string wrapped around his wrist, eliminating him immediately from the competition. There was no consolation prize offered so Harry simply walked disconsolately off the stage as my hand was held up in the air as victor.
I was given a sleeveless blue wool sweater with a felt Maple Leaf bearing the phrase "1938 Yo-Yo Winner" on the front. I still have it although it barely covers my ample belly. Do you think it's possible that a sweater shrank that much in 60 years? Yeah, really! I don't remember it having those two moth holes on the back either!
I was not only treated as a quasi-hero by my colleagues but also had a limitless supply of Yo-Yo strings given to me for distribution to participants in minor competitions. Each day I would hold mini-competitions in the school basement for a prize of strings. I felt extremely functional walking about with a thick bundle of Yo-Yo strings encircling my neck and shouders.
My new 'great pal and mentor' told me that they would be moving the group to Winnipeg during the summer holidays and I was welcome to come along if I would like. When I raised the prospect with my mother she dumped on it like a load of gravel. No amount of nagging and pleading would get her to change her mind.
'You're only thirteen years old!' she exclaimed. The thought of you taking off with a bunch of strangers for a month is just ridiculous!'
'But I wouldn't be with complete strangers,' I complained. 'Dave would keep an eye on me!'
'That's what I'm afraid of!' she said. That remark went completely over my head.
The following week my 'great pal and mentor' Dave invited me to come down town and take in a movie with him. I seem to recall that he was staying at the hotel directly across the street from the big Anglican Church of the Redeemer on Seventh Avenue and First Street East. I think it was called the Lincoln Hotel but that's just a fuzzy guess.
'I'm not going to be able to go to Winnipeg with you,' I said to Dave while the credits for the first feature were rolling.
'Why not?'
'My mom just said I can't go; she says I'm too young.'
'Oh, really!' he said peevishly. He was silent for a few moments then reached over and grabbed viciously at my crotch. I was incredibly shocked and stared straight ahead for a minute or so. Embarrassed, I turned to look at him but saw he was already rising from his seat.
'See ya later!' he mumbled as he edged toward the far end of the row. He was mistaken. I never saw him later, in fact I never saw him again.
— The End —