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The Yo-Yo Guy
by Beverly C. Lucey
Before Organized Playtime, or The President's Physical Fitness Program, there was just plain recess. Our elementary school held grades one through eight. We never heard of junior high or middle school. We went on to a four year high school.
The girls got the front yard, surrounded by chain link fencing, and no equipment. Our games were hide and seek, jump rope, and red rover. The boys had recess in the back of the school. They had a small track, a basketball court, a box of balls. Who knows what they were doing back there but someone blew an official whistle at odd times. It sounded as though they were having more fun.
The only exceptions to the gender separation came twice a year. We would have a Field Day by grade with timed races. I was the fastest girl runner in the fourth grade, but lost to Paul Travis in the finals. That was as it should be, I'm sure people felt. The idea of co-ed gym would have been a scandalous thought at the time. Plus, I was always taught that it was never a good idea to beat a boy at anything. Not if you wanted boys to like you. Even in fourth grade, I surely did.
The other exception to our segregated recess was the unpredictable day the Yo-Yo Man showed up. Who knows how he got permission to wander around playgrounds getting kids all riled up over impressive moves with a yo-yo, but that's what happened.
The Yo-Yo Man would stand on a large block of granite beside the back door steps. He'd just start doing cool tricks: Walking the Dog, Around the World, Sleeping Duncan. A crowd of boys would gather. One of us would hear the noise and recognize it as Duncan Day. We remembered from last year. First, five daring
eighth grade girls would sneak down the fenced alley that separated the front playground from the back. If they didn't get sent back, we'd just line up like a pile of ants and ooze out onto the blacktop of the backyard.
He wasn't selling anything, of course. He was just there to entertain. Sure. But all the penny candy stores and dry goods emporiums and Woolworth's Five Cent Stores suddenly were stocked with Duncan yo-yos. Some had glitter paint. Some had rhinestones on them. So cool. At first they were made of maple, but by 1955 plastic production started.
Every year some few of us kids would get the hang of Sleeping Duncan, or pop someone in the eye doing Around the World. The fad would last about a week. We couldn't master much in the way of tricks. Not even the boys.
That was pretty much it. Baseball season was starting, which was much more appealing.
The next year it would all happen again. We were starved for live entertainment, hungry for something new to break up the school day. If it took spending a couple of week's allowance on something we'd lose or toss in the trash, it all seemed worth it.
That Duncan Yo-Yo Man was as talented as any Red Sox player, at least for 20 minutes in the spring during the 1950s, in the middle of a school day.
Home of Duncan Yo-Yo
When Duncan started advertising on TV in the early 60s, they didn't much need the itinerant Yo-Yo Men anymore. They couldn't keep up with the demand and desire caused by their own national ad campaign.
Learn a Few Tricks
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