String On

Of all the toys and gifts I received at Xmas or birthdays or other occasions ... the guitar aside ... my favourites were a Yo-Yo ... a kite .. and a fibreglass bow ...

I am reasonably sure it was Bernard who gave me my first Yo-Yo ... I was fascinated with it ... the fact that you could flick or toss this thing .. do a 'trick' with it .. and then have it return to your hand ready for the next 'trick' ... it was like perpetual motion ... there was a Yo-Yo rep that came to Anderson's store ... on the weekends I believe ... you did your 'tricks' and the winner would get strings .. Yo-Yos .. and a trick book that illustrated some of the harder routines .. I still have mine ... and I still enjoy playing with the Yo-Yo .. it's a solitary experience ...

I don't remember when I received my first kite .. or who gave it to me ... they were available as kits ... reasonably straightforward to assemble ... all you needed was material for a tail to stabilize it ... the best being a couple of old nylon stockings ... we used to fly them in the square across from St. Judes .. and down off of Sea Street .. and depending on how much string ... you had you could really get up and out there .. I could do that for hours on end ... just watching the kite ... and like a Yo-Yo you just reeled it in when finished .. another solitary experience ... 

The bow .. I don't remember getting it either ... but I used to take it to the square and shoot the arrows straight up into the air ... never thinking that if it came down on me or anybody else ... that was probably the end of the story ... I think I was relieved of it by some bigger  ..tougher west siders ..who decided it was something they needed to own and not me ... again .. another solitary experience ...

All of these things two things in common ... you can play with them on your own .. in fact that is the only way they can be used ... the other thing is that a string is required to use all of them ... as does a guitar ... and what about baseball you say .. well it is a rubber covered cork centre wound with wool string ... and of course the baseball cover is sewn with cotton string ... well that's parsing it too closely ... although a baseball team operates individually on both offense and defence .. and the only team statistic being aggregates of individual stats or the won/loss record ... that's why I loved the game .. it was an individual sport disguised as a team one ... I could do that ... 

I haven't flown a kite in years .. the last time was when the girls were small ... I remember we made one out of scratch ... and it did fly ... and the beauty of it was ... it wasn't a solitary experience ..  we did it together ... I  have to admit .. kite flying ...was better that way ... oh .. what is the common thread with strings and all my favourite things? ... I think because of string they were all hands on ... requiring a certain amount of skill and dexterity ... and I could do all these things .. despite being told from time to time that I couldn't do anything ... yeah .. I think that was it ... no .. I know that was it ... 


Phil (27 December 2020 - San Patricio de Melaque - 8:14 PM)


Krome Koan - 'Every time I race a string it's a tie'




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