WEST: Spring like a yo-yo

By MIKE WEST

How does that old saying go?

March roars in like a lion and out like a lamb. I think that's right.

Now here in “Lion Country,” March has slid in like an iceberg. What's up with that?

All I know is the first day of spring was positively frigid. At The Courier we had the heat blasting and we were all dressed _ again _ for winter.

When it comes to weather, 2013 has acted like an old Duncan yo-yo.

A Duncan yo-yo, you say? You do know what a yo-yo is, don't you?

Yup, after being around since the Great Depression, the Duncan yo-yo had a resurgence beginning in 1962 with a series of TV commercials. They were made from various materials particularly wood and plastic and had several different styles including the "Butterfly."

The "Butterfly" reversed the traditional yo-yo's construction. The original toy had a sort of cookie structure. The butterfly looks a bit like the separated halves of a standard yo-yo that have been reconnected back-to-back. Does that make sense?

Well anyway, the "Butterfly" yo-yo's shape made it easier to catch the string without getting it all snarled up. That made it good for tricks like "sleeping" and "walking the dog."

Back in the 60s, boys would slip a yo-yo in their pocket and take it to school generally to show off before school started. It is needless to say, teachers ended up with drawers full of yo-yos by the end of the school year.

As for myself, my mother was a school teacher and I had no luck in sneaking my Yo-Yo to school.

It was not like I could do any tricks with it. Oh, I tried. I practiced, practiced and practiced some more. When I wasn't busy hitting myself in the head trying to learn a trick, I was busy unsnarling and relooping the string. Endlessly.

Eventually, it disappeared. Don't know if I lost it (probably) or it got confiscated (likely) by my mother.

Nor did I have any luck buying another "more modern" yo-yo. That was strongly discouraged and I was usually short the $1.25 (more or less) to buy another.

By the time my "baby" brother turned the proper age to have a yo-yo, wow, those things had experienced a revolution.

His yo-yo had lights and some sort of "electronic" brain that made it simple to do all sorts of tricks.

He was a yo-yoing whiz. But alas, his yo-yo disappeared as well.

One of these days, we are going to find all those missing toys. They've got to be hidden somewhere in my parents' home. Trouble is, I'm too lazy, uh, make that too busy to look.

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for spring to finally get here. Got a lot of spring projects ready to do like painting my storage shed, getting my mower ready to go. The list is endless, but I am looking forward to it.

So maybe I'm ready to roar like a lion and fizzle out like a lamb? Who knows with this “yo-yo” type of weather that’s warm one day and absolutely freezing the next.

Only time will tell.