Our basement is a disgrace, and it’s mostly my fault. I’m kind of a pack rat, you see, and there are countless boxes down there filled with “souvenirs” from all periods of my ridiculous life. It makes Toney crazy, and we’ve had more than one argument about it. Many more than one, in fact.
A couple of weeks ago we were looking for something specific in the basement, and Toney unearthed a rich vein of artifacts from my grade school era. She held up a ball of red and blue electrical tape, and said, “Why the hell did you keep this?”
I explained to her that when I was in fifth grade the teacher created a giant diagram of a human heart on the floor of our classroom, and would have kids walk through it and announce each part of the organ as they progressed. And after she was finished with it, she asked me and Danny J. to pull up the tape.
“And there it is…” I added, dramatically.
But my wife failed to grasp the historical significance of the item, and rolled her eyes in exasperation. If it were up to her, I know, she’d just throw that big wad of used tape into the garbage. And can you even imagine such a thing?
On that day Toney also found a battered, and much-used Duncan yo-yo, from roughly the same time period. And it got me to thinking about the elementary school fads that rocked our world. Stuff that somehow took-hold with a white-hot intensity, and swept through all the grade schools of our town, and probably beyond…
Below I’ve made a list of the fads that come immediately to my mind. It’s certainly not definitive, but maybe you guys can help make it more so? After I’m finished rattling on, please use the comments section to tell us about the elementary school fads you have known. OK? OK.
Yo-yos In fourth grade, or thereabouts, every kid in town carried around a yo-yo, like it was 1947 or something. It’s hard to imagine, but we all attempted fancy tricks like “Walk the Dog,” “Around the World,” and possibly the “Dirty Sanchez?” I’m unclear on it.
I remember there was a TV commercial at the time, selling a book (this was the pre-video era) that supposedly taught you all the tricks. And during the ad some doucheketeer showed us how cool we could be, by demonstrating the various yo-yo maneuvers. He was a master!
And I believe it was that commercial that triggered the frenzy. Every teacher in our school had a drawer-full of confiscated yo-yos. After the fad fully kicked-in, the school engaged The Clampdown, as usual, and wouldn’t allow us to have our yo-yos anymore. No fun allowed!
And so it goes.
Oh, and it HAD to be a Duncan yo-yo. It couldn’t be some cheap piece of crap from a Revco dumpbin. Oh no. All self-respecting yo-yoers rocked the Duncan, and nothing else.
Clackers These were two hard plastic balls, connected by a length of string, and you’d “clack” them together. Here’s a video of some dude demonstrating.
Clackers were briefly as popular as yo-yos, but kids started getting their teeth knocked out (reportedly), and going home with big knots on their heads… So, they were quickly banned from schools, and then from stores.
Heh. I guess people would get them clackin’ real fast, and something would go askew? It makes me laugh, just thinking about it. I never knew anyone who was hurt by a set of Clackers, and wonder how true those stories really were.
Oh well.
Super Balls These were just small rubber balls that could bounce like a motherfucker. We’d get them from bubble gum machines inside grocery stores, and they came in many colors and varieties. I think they cost a dime each.
And for a while every boy in the universe (our universe, anyway) walked around bouncing the things, almost absentmindedly. We’d also throw them straight down at the ground, to see how high we could make them bounce. It seemed like they’d go sailing twenty stories into the air.
I also remember us going into the bathrooms at the elementary school, flinging a ball at the wall, and covering up. I don’t know why we thought this was fun, but we did. Every class had a tiny bathroom, and we’d unleash the Super Balls in there, and would often emerge with a big red welt on the sides of our necks, to the delight of everyone else in the class.
We were kinda stoopid, now that I think about it.
Frito Bandito erasers During the 1970s, the Frito Bandito was the cartoon spokesman for Fritos corn chips. He was a Mexican who spoke with a lazy accent, wore a sombrero, carried guns, and talked about robbing and looting all the time. For some reason people thought this was racist, and demanded the Bandito be put out to pasture. And he was.
But before the crybabies ruined all our fun, there was a full-blown elementary school fad involving the Frito Bandito eraser. Here’s an old TV commercial that explains what they were.
Every kid, boy or girl, had at least one of these things, and they were extremely valuable. You had to be careful, or someone would jack your eraser, and completely shatter your world.
I remember being in Kroger (aka Kroger’s) in Dunbar, and all the six-packs of Fritos were plundered. The plastic wrapping was ripped on every single package, and the erasers had been removed by junior criminals. Oh, those things were a hot commodity, and probably should’ve been stored inside a cage, like the iPods at Sam’s Club.
Pro Keds In grade school. sneakers were incredibly important. And for a while Pro Keds were at the very pinnacle of the “tenna shoe” hierarchy. They were just normal looking things, but had a small red and blue stripe on the side. Here’s what I’m talking about.
Converse All-Stars were also very popular during that period, and maybe a few others. Who the hell knows at this point?
Off-brand sneakers were called “dobies,” and there was no greater shame than to come to school wearing a pair of dobies, or even worse… “K-Mart dobies.” Luckily, I was able to convince my parents of the importance of all this, and always had reasonably fashionable footwear.
Whew!
Now I’m going to turn it over to you guys… If you have anything on the subject of elementary school fads, please tell us about it in the comments.
And just so you know… I also remember some lower-grade fads surrounding paper footballs (remember those things?), Bic Banana pens (heh), and various lunchboxes (Planet of the Apes, Hot Wheels, Evel Knievel, etc). But they were second-tier fads, and never reached critical mass.
What were the hot items at your school? Tell us about it, won’t you?
And I’ll see you guys tomorrow.
Have a great day!
UW – and the hockey cards clothespinned to the spokes?
This one Uncle Wedgie?
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bmxnonstop.com/oldschool/images/deluxe.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.bmxnonstop.com/oldschool/1966ray.htm&h=323&w=416&sz=116&tbnid=QlYI7sOit18_RM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dschwinn%2Bbanana%2Bseat%2Bbike&usg=__yWczNuiuFRoNkL7JVfeTQqFDaIA=&ei=DBRWS7LLIYm2NtX11ZMJ&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=6&ct=image&ved=0CCUQ9QEwBQ
Wow, wordnerd posted, for the first time in, like, it seems like years. She goes way, way back, pre-HaloScan, I think (let alone pre- whatever this posting device is called).
Next thing ya know, we’ll be hearing from Hitchcocknut.
There is a nice Wacky Packages website that I look at from time to time.
Jeesum Crow that must be the longest link in the history of the interwebs
Makin’ out to the taste of Lip Smackers and the scent of “Love’s Baby Soft” perfume on Kim E.’s neck circa 1974 at summer camp….her bell bottom jeans pushed down to her Converse Allstars…little butt in the air….listening to the Starlight Vocal Band singing “Afternoon Delight”…all this in the back seat of a Pinto Squire wagon with an 8-track tape player Oh, man, the 70’s were great. Of course we were drinking Mad Dog…aka MD 20/20…from Dixie cups.
OHHHHH, and the “Half Shirt” was popular in my day as well. You might what to let your neighbor know the fad has long since past. LOL
For the girls (and maybe the guys:0) Love’s Baby Soft perfume and Jovan Wild Musk perfume. Windsong and Jean Nate.
I collected marbles, superballs and I loved those Frito Bandito erasers!
I remember sneakers being very important as well. I always tried to get the strangest colored sneakers and clash them with colored laces. And they were sneakers. Only people who played tennis wore tennis shoes.
This may have been local (Stone Mountain, GA) but I also remember everyone having leather bracelets with your name stamped on them. You swapped when you were ‘going’ with someone.
Hey…anyone remember the pink rubber shit that came in a toothpaste-type tube? You put a gob of it on the end of a straw…blew into it to get a big bubble…
Trish: My hair had an Aqua-Net halo….red can only. My bangs looked like a friggin rooster tail. And we thought we looked hot!
Forgot about the pet rock. SImple idea, made guy wealthy.
Also “mood rings”.
On IPOD right now- “La Grange”- ZZ Top
The strangest name for sneakers I ever heard — I used to know a guy from Scotland, and he called sneakers “baseball boots.” Apparently that’s what they call ’em over there. Any Scots listening in who can comment on that?
T. Farty – I remember now – the Pumas with the flap on the tongue that folded back over the laces. Not quite cleats, not quite sneakers. And the binders were “Trapper Keepers.”
AWG – thanks – that’s exactly what I was thinking of.
Hmm…I seem to be older than most here so here is a list from the 60’s
Red Ball Jets or Converse Hi tops
Nifty Notebooks – even with the power of the intertubes I can’t find anything about them. Had to have one tho to be ‘cool’.
Superballs before the ‘Great Downsizing’ they were the size of baseballs and they really hurt when you got hit.
Penny loafers with dimes in them instead of pennies.
Soul socks – these were really tuxedo socks but all the high school guys wore them with their penny loafers.
We called the off-brand shoes “buddies” for a reason that completely escapes me. My parents thought that there was no reason to buy name brand shoes so I often had to go to school in buddies. My father threw a fit when I wanted a $40 pair of Reeboks.
As for grade school fad, other than a period of where marbles were real popular, I can’t think of any.
Penny wars! We divided up into two teams, one on each end of the hall. Everyone would bring a pocket of pennies. Then we’d fling pennies at each other. Occasionally someone would draw blood with a penny. If you wanted to be a real jerk, you would sneak in the occasional quarter! 🙂
You want to talk cheep cologne?
Jade East was big as were British Sterling and English Leather. I can still smell that crap.
AWG – yes, I meant to mention mood rings. I wonder what color yours was….
@bikerchick….Super Elastic Bubble Plastic.
The fumes could kill you.
I saw a kid break his forearm doing the clackers thing. It evidently just cracked the bone. The funniest thing I saw was when a kid doing clackers in the mall, had a string break and that acrylic cannonball went rocketing down the length of the main walkway, bouncing about two feet off the ground, barely missing everyone in sight until it was too far away to see.
Most super balls are sort of large marble size now, but when they came out there were some that were almost the size of a tennis ball. They were really heavy and dense.
We dropped one down the center shaft of a stairwell from three stories up and it almost came back to that level. So we went to the top of the stairwell which was about 6 or 7 stories and dropped it. We had someone at each level to see how high it would come back up.
I remember looking down as it dropped and seeing heads sticking out at each floor, and when it reached the bottom it exploded into what seemed like hundreds of pieces which ricocheted around the basement area like shrapnel.
I guess this sort of deal shows what age people are around here.
I have always called them tennis shoes. Just as soda is always pop to me.
That is a whole other post. I think we have talked about that here before.
I just spurted!
Wordnerd – I honestly think I carried my marbles in a Crown Royal bag. I think we lived on the tracks…
I was such a nerd!! I could have cried myself to sleep over not having a trapper keeper, as my dad refused to spend the money on it. (needed cigs and beer, duh)
I see them now and get all giddy to buy for my son. I think they are banned?? Wtf is wrong with trapper keepers, does anyone know?? I remember those dumb braided friendship bracelets, I never had any because I had no friends(see above reference). Those necklaces that said “Best Friends” and they were a heart broke in half…you gave it to your bestie…banana clips, and loafers!! I am getting all twitchy thinking about it.
Cheryl: Omg! That’s it! I knew someone here would remember.
I’m going to have to support JCIII on the SSP. I was just describing them to my girls the other day. There’s no way those things would be sold now. In addition to the risk of hair getting caught in the flywheel, that sumbitch would burn you if you happened ti hit skin against the spinning wheel before you got it on the floor, not to mention the whipping cog cord flying straight for your eye as you yanked it with all your might. I got a shiny metallic purple on Christmas 1972-3. Loved that thing.
Anyone remember the color-in pocket folder notebooks? They were plain white paper with various patterns printed on them- some psychedelic, some bucolic- and you colored them in. I can’t imagine they were very popular with teachers.
Cassey J – me too. I can be your friend.
I the Trapper Keeper is now banned due to the fact that they tried to take over the world.
Considering most everyone went to school around the same time, theres not much, if anything to add, except magnifying glasses. We spent countless hours bringing the wrath of god down upon ants, each other, and anything else that was at hand.
One of the girls in my class, her dad worked for Opee Chee, and she would often have cards and stuff, even uncut sheets to give out. Garbage Pail Kids where by far the most popular (I still got a few around here somewhere). They where so popular they got stuck everywhere… And thus came the end. The girl (dad) was told that she was never to bring any sticker to school again. There are probably still a few errant garbage pail kids stuck in some obscure corner in that school…
never trust a man who dosn’t get a thrill from bouncing super balls. in fact, that guy’s probably a neo nazi
Canadian checking in here:
During a brief period in the Eighties, branded clothes from Pepsi, Coke, and McDonalds were all the rage. Looking back, man is that weird. I remember my big brother got a red Coke shirt for about $70 and I was totally pissed my folks didn’t spring for one for me.
Also, Reebok broke in while I was in school and a pair of white Reeboks was the shit.
Elementary school was all about these rubbery plastic bracelets. Even dudes wore them. I remember Archie comics had an add for about 500 of them for 10 bucks or something and I almost sent the little coupon thing in a bunch of times.
Pogs were briefly popular, but they came and went within about a month.
Another mention of Garbage Pail Kids stickers. They were huge and there was an uproar from *those* parents who were worried about some pictures of kids doing gross things warping our minds or whatever
I was a Red Ball Jets man. We called ‘sneakers or tennis shoes’…”Go-Fasters.” I wore steel spikes in Little League and kept the black leather uppers, shined just like the big boys. Taking your new ballglove to school for the first time and a brand new fresh out of the blue box that said, “Official”, Rawlings baseball, was better than holding Marsha Vaske’s hand.
Along with the red (and bule was around too) baloon stuff, there were these little black things that came about eight or so to a pack, called ‘Magic Snakes”. You’d light them and they would just go and grow into about a two foot long greyish balck, cheese doodle looking thing and ‘snake’ along the ground. Those balsa wood airplanes were a big hit too. Either with or without the rubber band driven propeller and the added landing gear. A definite entertainment staple. Easy to please back then I guess.
As I write this I see the ad for 50 MP3 albums flashing there at the bottom and I see an amazing amount of humor in that, having just returned from being 9, in the fourth grade in 1962.
I actually got tiny little tube of the Super Elastic Bubble Plastic in a bubble gum machine a few years ago (yes, I am in my forties and I still waste my money in bubble gum machines-what of it? At least now I have enough money to keep turning until I get what I want). It was only about an inch long with a little bitty straw but it made several pretty good bubbles. @Cheryl and bikerchick-It still smelled exactly the same.
@Swami Bologna-we used to chew on that stuff too and no leukemia to date *knocks on wood*
I remember posters and black lights, tie dyed shirts,platform shoes and bell bottoms. first time smoking a dobie.and drive in movies.
I loved Garbage Pail Kids so much and was so excited when I was invited to the set of the movie (Horrible! Horrible!) starring Mackenzie Astin. My aunts live in Coeur D’Alene, ID and are good friends with Patty Duke who lives nearby. Her sons of course are Sean and Mackenzie Astin. Every year when we would visit, there would always be a get-together and my brother and I would play with Sean & Mackenzie. It was bizarre now that I see how famous Sean has become & even knowing that he was in Goonies (we loved that film) but not putting 2 & 2 together that Sean was famous even then.
Anyhow, we all had Garbage Pail Kids cards & one year Mackenzie was telling us how he got picked to star in the movie for the cards. I just about wet myself I was so excited. His mom saw how freaked I was and invited me to come along with them while he filmed. Heaven in a puke barrel!
Imagine my disappointment and horror when we got to the set & the “kids” I thought were so hilarious were actually either teenagers, or small adults wearing hideous suits & awful makeup. It’s one thing to be ugly but it’s quite another to be scary and vile. After about an hour hiding from the little people in costume, my dad whisked me away and gave me a tour of the rest of the lot, where better things were being filmed, like a Palmolive commercial starring that old lady who also hawked denture creams. She gave me a hug and said I was “Cute”. I just stared at her mouth because in the denture commercials the teeth were always in a glass soaking in water. Her teeth were in place though and her laugh sounded like she lived full time in a coal mine.
Looking back the Garbage Pail Kids in that movie still scare the bejeezus outta me. Of course at the time I was 8 so god knows how much therapy Dr. Phil will have to provide to get the images of those Garbage kids out of my head for good.
Also I remember in middle school people wearing the ‘Button Your Fly’ jeans. How awful were those when you had to pee really bad?!
I remember my mom about killing herself to find me and my BFFbutton fly jeans…. She was sure we would never survive the horrors of 8th grade without them. Thats what we get for living out in the boonies though, 2 stores and nothing made inteh past 5 years available. (She found a pair, we shared them and life went right along.)
My hubby grew up someplace even more rural, 12 bars, no post office, library or clothing stores, and the one place to eat was off the side of a bar where his mean-ass grandma burned steaks and fries. Turns out his mom scraped and starved to get the boy name brand shoes so he wouldnt get his ass wooped in school for being a poor kid, and when he found out (at about age 12) he told her to stop since he could give a shit about name brand anything. Apparentally she had been wasting her time, since he’s just not interested in that sort of thing.
My vote has always been that since he was busy hot wireing cars, drinkin left overs at his grandmas bar and havin sex with 16 year old girls he probably didn’t have much time to consider the merits of various band and no brand shoes and the social reprocussions therein.
I seem to recall the super ball fad coming first, maybe 5th grade or so. Chuck in Belpre is correct, they were the size of a normal ball like a “Spaldeen”, not those malted-milk-ball-size things that appeared later.
The yo-yo showed up a little after that, like 7th grade. And a Duncan Imperial was indeed the shit, but in my school a Goody Filipino Twirler was also acceptable. Bic Bananas not so much, but the Flair pens were big for a while.
When I was in grade school you could have PF Flyer sneakers, or regular Keds. Pro Keds were considered a knockoff of Converse All Stars (the real deal). One did not wear Pro Keds.
Uncle_Wedgie, we called that a “banana bike”. My friend Hugh had the Nutcracker Special: a 5-speed one with a Hurst-looking “stick shift” on the tube right where your junk would hit if you stopped short.
Yo-balls — automatically came back to you.
Holly Hobby – my childhood bedroom was Holly Hobby
Lighted plastic football (with holes) for summer nights
whip-its – slide puzzle shaped like a tube
friendship pins – colored beads on safety pins
hackey sack
Zips tennis shoes (Possibly a KMart thing)
The Green Machine – a big wheel but with brakes on each side so you could skid out.
@JeffInDenver — a gyroscope?
@Melissa — I have never successfully found these
gum candy cigarettes in my adult life.
I have visited some huge candy stores, too. But, I DO
remember them.
I am still guilty of:
lip smackers
pop rocks
Love’s Baby Soft
Super Elastic Bubble Plastic
Pretty neat site…bubble gum cigs here!!1
Old-Time Candy we had as kids
oh shit… i forgot sour patch!
those candies that are sour and almost inedable!!!! before the sour patch KIDS there were sourpatch strips. those were soooo grosss… but we all ate them…
then there was crystal pepsi and anything blue in the 1980’s…
HOW COULD I FORGET ABOUT FOOD AND STILL BE FATTIE20XL?!?!
So many memories from reading these posts!
Jeff, I think that is the real value in saving stuff. These items will often make the memories come flooding back, in a way that just isn’t possible otherwise. Looking at the frito-bandito commercial took me right back to the school-bus when I was in fourth grade.
I always liked to keep boxes of stuff when I was a kid, but, alas, none of them made it through. It’s great that you kept yours!
Playing in head: Pants on the Ground by Jimmy Fallon as Neil Young
In grade school, every girl wanted a pair of Ditto jeans, then as we got older, it became Gloria Vanderbilt, then Calvin Klein. By high school it was either parachute pants or Levi’s 501s, pegged of course, which I guess made them the precursor to skinny jeans. And you had to wear a bandana around your ankle, an Izod shirt, and topsiders. Or alligator skin penny loafers.
In grade school, I was more interested in Kickball, Dodgeball, Tetherball, and Four Square. I somewhat recall that next to Pop Rocks, Jolly Rancher suckers (not the bite-sized hard candies) were really popular. My friends and I would sit in my room, sucking on a Jolly Rancher, staring at my posters of Rex Smith, Shawn Cassidy, Leif Garrett, and Andy Gibb. Prepubescent uselessness.
A friend of mine insists that mastering the Clacker helped him perfect his jerk-off technique. Do any of the men out there concur?
You guys have touched on all the schoolyard fads that were big back in my day: Wacky Packs (as we called ’em), clackers, super balls, yoyos, Super Elastic Bubble Plastic, Bic Bananas, and also the crazy folders we used to color on with them. Thanks for the reminders about Frito Bandito erasers. I coveted those as well.
One thing I didn’t see mentioned though: Whizzers. They were small spinning tops that you “revved up” by dragging the tips across a smooth surface. Then, you and your friends could have a Whizzer “battle.” I seem to remember my third grade teacher having quite a collection of Whizzers in her desk drawer.
“Toney unearthed a rich vein of artifacts from my grade school era. She held up a ball of red and blue electrical tape, and said, “Why the hell did you keep this?”
I explained to her that when I was in fifth grade the teacher created a giant diagram of a human heart on the floor of our classroom, and would have kids walk through it and announce each part of the organ as they progressed. And after she was finished with it, she asked me and Danny J. to pull up the tape.
“And there it is…” I added, dramatically.”
ROFLMAO!
A couple yrs. ago I took the opportunity to clean out(and I do mean Clean out, as in big out the shovel!)my youngest son’s bedroom while he was away at summer camp. I found a ball of Masking Tape, the size of a kickball in there.
When he returned home I asked him what the deal was with the Mega Ball of Used Tape. He said it was from some project in school….he was assigned the job w/2 other kids of picking up/cleaning up said tape. He ‘won’ the honor of bringing that Ball o’ Tape home over the other 2 youngins.
I promptly made him dispose of that hunk of trash. I may be paying for therapy for him when he is older but at least I have headed off his becoming a Jeff Kay-style hoarder.lolol
Wow. Too much to comment on here.
My hometown stores sold shitty version of Converse tennis shoes for $6 bux or so at the 5 & 10. We called them “flippers” because the sole would become detached from the actual shoe in short order and they would make a slapping sound when you were walking. I remember gluing the soles back on with rubber caulking in Dad’s garage many times for me and buddies. Puma was the real deal, they held up, but cost twice as much.
Any of you have a Whirlybird? Battery powered helicopter with a joystick that ran off of something like 8 D Cell batteries? My dad would bitch when I would go to the hardware store and buy something like 24 batteries at a time and put it in his tab. 8 batteries lasted for about an hour. The actual rotor blades were hard plastic spinning at warp speed and would hit you and require stitches and hurt like fuck.
Crossman 760 BB guns? Western Auto sold 3/16″ diameter lead pellets. The gun was designed to be “pumped” up to 10 times to increase pressure in the valve. When you pulled the trigger, the pellets could penetrate in and out the other side of a Wheeling Steel garbage can, and those cans were about 1/4″ thick steel and weighed about 80 pounds. I believe me and my buddy shot out the majority of the street lights in town one summer.
Cindy Blake used to ladle herself in Love’s Baby Soft. I believe I ate her in 1981. Have not seen her since.
Dad had a subscription to Penthouse. Arrived by mail monthly. (Yes, I was popular in the neighborhood as a result at age 12 or so).
One issue I intercepted had an ad for some blue pills that had 500 milligrams of caffeine. I remember one pill was equal to 10 cups of coffee or something and was “completely legal”. I ordered something like 1,000 of them for $12.00. These were like speed balls at pennies per dose. Sold hundreds of them for $1 each to the entire squad of cheerleaders at high school. I think the cheerleaders lost something like 700 pounds divided by 24 girls over a 3 month time frame in total. Mom found my stash. Accusations ensued that I was a drug dealer. I had to show her the ad (in Dad’s Penthouse Magazine) to prove it was only caffeine. Problem solved. Never mentioned again after 30+ years.
Much more to post, except I am loaded and this took 40 minutes to type.
There’s something about Wordnerd’s comment (casual, conversational, contextual) that suggests she’s been lurking all (or at least some of) these many months. The last time I saw a wordnerd comment, the President was confused, the US was involved in two land wars in Asia, we didn’t have national health insurance, and there was a terrible recession. Oh, I guess that was last week. Well, at least the Veep has improved.
Hi wordnerd. How’s the jambalaya?
jtb
Not Oprah- my mood ring always seemed to be blue back then, before forty years of workin’ for da man and the constant stream of disappointment life has had to offer and the feelings of aggrevation that I have had to keep stuffed way down deep. Now, the ring would probably display as black as my soul.
hardoxdan- I took those pills for a short while when running track. Real Mom and fake dad found them and acted as if I had been the brains behind a redneck heroin ring. Had to quit any extracurricular activity and was under lockdown for about six months. Oh yeah, and fake dad beat me to a pulp, but that built character.
Also, had a whirlybird. Those bitches were cool. Divebombed the cat many times with that.
On IPOD right now- “Far Behind”- Candlebox
My feet grew up in Converse Chuck Taylors. I would have been embarrassed to be in anything else, especially Keds. That was the late ’60s early ’70’s.
I re-took up yo-yoing about 6 years ago as a way to kill time at my kid’s swim practices… not a Duncan. You have to get a ball bearing spindle. Yo Yo Jam Super Spinfaktor. Sleeps for over a minute. OK, I’m a nerd…
I still have The Whizzer top I got in 1973. Mattel was remaking them a few years ago.
I had a Whirlybird. Those go for big money on Ebay now.
The only thing I have not seen mentioned that was big at our grade school is the chinese jump rope. They were tricky to find and required three people or in a pinch two people and a chair.
I think I finally got my hands on one only to be faced with the reality that I and my peers did not really relate to one another until I was about 30.