In Housatonic, many years ago, the warming weather brought not only a gay profusion of flowers but the coming of the Duncan yo-yo man as well. For a couple of weeks, before fishing and baseball, yo-yos ruled.
The yo-yo man always showed up at Thomas’s general store on the far north corner of the old wooden block at four o’clock, giving us kids a chance to get home and change our school clothes and hustle back down street.
I remember him well, distinctive in his wide-shouldered, tight-waisted single-buttoned sport coat, narrow tie and fashionably baggy, but tellingly shiny pants.
He waited, hands in pockets, at the center of a growing circle of young boys, smoking and making small talk with the disquieting nonchalance of supreme confidence. We waited, scuffling our feet, looking at the ground just as his eyes met ours, waiting for him to begin his show.
With no fanfare he dipped into his pocket, produced a red Duncan yo-yo and swung into his repertoire of tricks: spank the baby, rock the cradle, walk the dog.
Flying from his hand the yo-yo shortly evolved a life of its own, a flight of fancy as it gave form to the stunts he named. But as it reached its outer limits and seemed just ready to assert its will, he jerked it back to its tame reality, running it down and up down and up until he was ready to give the toy its brief, flashing freedom again.
As he finished, he told us Duncan yo-yos were for sale inside, turned on his heel, hopped into a Studebaker and was gone as suddenly as he’d appeared.
Inspired by his almost insolent virtuosity, we fell all over ourselves rushing in to buy our own Duncans. For a few days we wandered around town running yo-yos up and down as we walked and talked. Some guys actually learned a couple of tricks.
Though they may still be around, I haven’t seen a yo-yo in decades. Our yo-yo man has probably gone the way of all long life.
Remembering other softer spring days that certainly must have been, I headed out into a chilly wind missing the flash of yo-yos in the sun.
