Yo-Yo

The Best Toy Ever Made

Wikipedia begins it’s nice little write up as follows: “The yo-yo is a toy...” And in this holiday season, as Toys-R-Us empties itself of crapola it is worth reflecting on one of the great toy fads in history. There was a time (in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s) when the yo-yo was ubiquitous. Every boy, and some girls, aged ten through twelve carried one in their pocket. When I was quite a small boy my dad was an F.W. Woolworth manager. Woolworth sold Duncan Yo-Yos. Duncan was a company that was purchased from a Filipino guy named Pedro Flores who started making yo-yos in 1929. I guess that’s why there were so many Filipino yo-yo experts. Woolworth would often have these small Filipino men demonstrating yo-yos and one of them gave my dad a tiny, 14ct gold yo-yo that I lusted after. It even had a string. Later, in the forties and fifties, yo-yo companies sent reps around to school. I recall a man appearing during recess wearing a sports jacket. Today, he’d be run off the playground as a suspected child molester. But, in those days we all gathered round as he took a yo-yo from his jacket and began to do marvelous tricks, sleeping the yo-yo, walking the dog, rocking the cradle and looping the loop. We were awestruck and he invited us to come to a local store after school where he would teach us those tricks and many more. We showed up, a small, intense group determined to master this simple toy. This guy was not from Duncan. He was from the Cheerio Company, a Canadian outfit that, in the forties, tried its luck against the Duncan juggernaut in the U.S. My first yo-yo was a Cheerio. I had a knack for the yo-yo and spent hours practicing, earned my nine trick award, got a patch for my sweater and a bigger one for winning the district contest. Then I entered our school’s competition which was run by Duncan. They wouldn’t let me play my Cheerio so I borrowed a Duncan and won that one too. But then we moved and yo-yos weren’t so popular in the next place and my yo-yoing skills went into hiatus. It’s been fifty plus years since that first contest but I still own yo-yos (now they are expensive Tom Kuhn models) and I can still do enough tricks to impress a school kid. My weakness was that I was one-handed. A good yo-yo man is ambidextrous and can work two yo-yos at once. The internet, as usual, is an amazing resource for information on yo-yos.  Dave's Incredible Yo-Yo Gallery is a good place to start. One of my best internet yo-yo finds is a reminiscence by detective fiction superstar James Lee Burke called  "Why Bugsy Siegel Was a Friend of Mine."
Burke, I’m happy to report, was a Cheerio guy, too. (Cheerio was a superior yo-yo). I just learned that the  National Yo-Yo Museum is in Chico. I’ll be checking it out sometime soon. But, in the meantime, if you want a good toy to play with...