At the start of second grade in 1963, yo-yos and tops were popular. My father showed me how to make the yo-yo sleep by loosening the string, letting it spin above ground, and then snapping it back up. I could Walk the Dog but lacked the skill and technique for tricks like Around the World and Rock the Baby.
I loved the top. An older boy on the next block showed me how to wind the string around the bottom and whip it toward a flat surface like the linoleum floor in our kitchen. It would spin and move around. I became proficient and took my top to school. Kids would spin tops in a big locker room at ground level during recess, lunch, and before school started. The floor was hard and smooth, with lots of room.
One day, two older boys bragged that they could spin tops and run around the school building, returning while the top was still spinning. One approached me and said he thought I was a good spinner for my age and why don’t I try spinning my top and running around the school. He told me he bet it would still be spinning when I got back and that he would watch my top so the other kids wouldn’t take it.
That’s all it took. I was hooked, and all they had to do now was reel me in. I whipped that top as I’d never whipped it, tore out the doorway, and started running around the school. I wasn’t the fastest runner, but that day, I felt like the wings of Mercury were on my feet. When I returned to the locker room, the two boys had left, and my top was nowhere to be seen. After I got my wind and sat down to rest, it became clear my top was gone, probably for good. I was madder at myself for falling for the scam than I was at them. The next time I saw the two cons, I asked for my top back, but they acted like I didn’t know what I was talking about. My mother noticed the absence of my top spinning on our kitchen floor and asked me what happened to it. I just told her I’d lost it, and that was the truth.
I eventually mastered ‘Around the World,’ but ‘Rock the Baby’ came much later.
William P Adams lives in the Pacific Northwest, writing short fiction inspired by his childhood in the 1960s. His stories have appeared in Macrame Lit and Rockvale Review.
