I still have the 2 you gave me with the Special
Military ‘Coding’.
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I miss the days where you would display your amazing mods via the mirror shot for the whole world to see.
-I miss the days where Kyle Weems and Jonrob would bash eachothers brains in via words in the yoyoing chat.
-I miss the yoyoing news forum, along with Extremespin. The excitement to talk with other yoyoers around the world, and for Extremespin, it felt like home. ES was very much a “midwest yoyoers” forum in my opinion.
-I miss the camaraderie of the days of when Duncan was in its hey-day with the Freehand One and Steve. Everyone in the community had a freehand one, and everyone was so easily excited to want to learn new tricks, create new material and just want to love yoyo.
-I miss the hey-day of my yoyo rivalry with my good buddy Scott Nesham- whom for at least five years we traded wins and losses at Crazy Judy’s Wisconsin State yoyo contest held in Burlington, WI.
-I miss when yoyo competitions could be placed on Dvd and be bought at via stores, such as the World Yoyo Contest held in Orlando, FL. I once had 2003 to 2005 worlds freestyles and would obsessively watch them in my younger days of yoyo.
-I miss the feeling of buying yoyos in stores. Specically here in Marshfield, WI there was a mall I would go to that had one of those “tea shops” that sold hippy stuff but also would sell Turbo Bumble Bee’s and Tigersharks. I would always get wide-eyed seeing them and bought so many from said shop…priceless feeling.
-I REALLY miss the Yoyojam Hitman. Like, why there hasn’t been a mass scale metal version made by any company out there still blows my darn mind away.
-I miss Sector Y and Gabriel Lozano.
-I miss being the yoyo kid that still had dreams to “make it big” in the yoyo world. And while yoyoers that know the name of “Zammy” consider that I have had sucess, I am more “infamous” than I am known in a good manner, in my opinion.
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My mom remembers these yoyos from when she was growing up! Unfortunately her collection is no more. She probably had no idea she’d have a daughter 35 years later that would be interested in owning them!
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Speaking of Jonrob… does he still throw?
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In my age bracket, that was last week! That must have been fantastic. I’ve been to a few throwdowns in Hawaii as a spectator of course. These were after 2000. I still throw but you modern throwers rule. No sense in watching a turtle play golf.
To feed off what Zammy said, long “aging myself” post ahead…
I miss seeing yoyos in stores…big box, mall kiosk, comic store, and that little toy store in the shopping center.
There was nothing more exciting at the time than finding a new yoyo you didn’t have sitting right there on the store shelves within reach, and asking around where my friends found such a yoyo that they brought to school. It made for an exciting trip to the said store to go snag one. This was me in the Summer of 1997 when I laid eyes on a fireball for the first time. My friend, cousin and I would all either ride our bikes or walk the 2.5 miles to the small toy store to pick up our fireballs, then I’d see something else different that I had to try and save up for.
I remember when Freehand 1’s lined the shelves at Target as well as finding a Black Mamba 5-star on the shelf along with the slimline Duncan Professionals. I remember seeing the Turbo Bumblebee GT at my local card shop when I went to go pick up some Magic cards/decks…sadly I ignored the Bumblebee GT. I remember seeing the pro-yos and pro-fly’s along with the Duncan Ballistics in their own dedicated area at Walmart…along with the more obscure “Moose yoyos” that had a bunch of varieties including glow, smelly, metallic, etc.
KB Toys had the BC wooden yoyos in a bunch of different styles, along with some Yomega and Duncan.
At the time, internet was in its infancy so the discovery of a “new yoyo” was even more exciting. There was no telling what it was like, how it played, etc…you found out once you ripped open the package and strung it up.
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KB Toys is where I got my first BC Spitfire, yellow with red rims. My girlfriend’s son needed string for the yoyo a neighbor gave him. He stopped playing more than 5 years ago, but I kept on.
The only yoyos you find in stores now are Duncan Imperial and Butterfly.
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I think I had a spitfire actually…a classmate gave it to me. Was a cool little yoyo, I think I still have it somewhere, most likely stored away in the attic.
For a brief moment, Walmart did have Pro Z’s available, being the first bearing throw I’ve seen in the store in years. But as you guessed, it didn’t last long on the shelves.
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I never really had anyone to yoyo with and as such all my memories are mostly of my own experiences and shenanigans.
However, there is one special moment, the most incredible memory I have related to yoyoing when I was very young. My Grandmother and I walking around looking for fallen branches to make my first yoyos. Taking those limbs to the house and cutting them up and making yoyos and spin tops. That’s an example of my family life, that’s my Grandmother. I know you guys think I’m old but, I still have her and I think I’ll give her a call.
Sorry for the serious, sentimental post. My usual posts to follow
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You told this story more in-depth in 2018, I think I am remembering that. I asked you if you had photos of those yoyos and you said you didn’t. That was with my old account. It’s such a great memory you have!
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WARNING; the following is a story about a personal adventure in my life. Reading it will not make you smarter, or increase you zest of life, or knock you down with a burst of spine tingling death defying action. It is just a cool story with a yoyo in the middle. And if you like stories shorter than hard covered books; you may enjoy walking in my shoes through the past, briefly.
If you don’t care to read reminiscing personal stories. Than stop right here and go do something more entertaining. Thanks…
The Shed
It’s 2am over here in Cali right now. I was just playing 8 Ball Pool and I quit right after winning 10 games in a row. I don’t like to lose, right before I go to bed, lol. Because I think about how I could have won if I didn’t screw up some shot, haha.
I stopped by to check out new entries in this thread.
And by the way, thanks to everyone that has posted memories on this topic. I am very happy people are sharing such good memories from years past… and most of us are far from done.
And as one of the guys mentioned; now will be history eventually🤔
Anyway… I thought of something that was pretty memorable from several years ago.
Several blocks from where I grew up, there was a very large piece of property called the Gaffey Mansion. A, Mr. Gaffey was one of the earlier ‘Big Wheels’ in San Pedro. And the entire property was notable in the entire area.
It was so big, that when the San Pedro YMCA was looking to build the Biggest Fitness center around, the Owners of the property granted a huge part of it for the project.
The Owners still had a large enough plot to have their secondary house and 22 large garages in a row on the property… and a giant sized yard, even!
The primary owner, owned a Bank in San Pedro. They did a lot of loans. Sometimes when people would default on their loans, instead of liquidation through the appropriate agencies, the Owner would just have all the goods, equipment, furniture, whatever> delivered to his property and put into one of those 22 garages. He was sort of a big time Hoarder, I guess.
When he died, the family decided to finally sell off the mountain of ‘stuff’ he had absorbed over decades…
The Estate sale was sooooooo big, that a Professional Auction Company held the on site sale every Saturday and Sunday for 8 weeks in a row. This dude had ‘some stuff’.
I live six blocks from my parents house. So each time I would go by to see them, I would drive by the Auction and see if they had something else I had to have🙀
Off to the side of all those garages, there was a field about 3/4 of an acre. For whatever reason, there was a shed right in the middle of that field. Gardening tools and such.
Each time I would walk the line of garages, I would look at that little shed and think about how ancient it looked but was still ‘there’.
I asked the Caretaker about the shed. He said he had been the Caretaker for over 30 years and had Never seen anybody go into it or even stand next to it… It was just ‘there’.
So, I immediately walked over to the shed to take a closer look. Yup, there it is. An old shed(shoulder shrug/whatever). But as I walked away, I seriously wondered if there might be something really worth buying in there?
The Auction people told me that the shed was not to be opened for whatever reason. I’m guessing the deceased owner never allowed anybody in it? And they just decided to follow his wishes?
I usually have a yoyo hanging from my belt and as soon as one of the Auctioneers noticed it, I was showing them tricks each weekend from that moment until the Estate sale was over.
… weeks later I missed going one Saturday. One of my friends called me up and warned me that Sunday was the very last day and they were closing down Fo-eva…
So… the next day about 30 minutes before the end of the sell off, I arrived on site.
I said goodbye to the Auction People(a family Business<>everyone of them was related to one another). The only one I didn’t see was the Father of the Clan. An old white haired guy with a smile and good humor that just wouldn’t go away.
As I was walking off the property, I looked over my left shoulder and noticed the shed had been demolished to the ground.
I turned back around and said, ‘Wow. What happened to the shed’? Right about that moment, here comes the white haired guy with his perpetual smile. He says to me, ‘Hey there Yoyoman. I’m glad you dropped by. I have something for you. The other day, some crew came over and knocked down that shed. They broke the lock and found that the shed had some amazingly well preserved old school gardening tools and such. One of the workers came over and handed something to me that he found had fallen down between the double wooden walls of the well built shed.
He took it out of his pocket and handed it to me. He said ‘you should have this. I used to watch you stare at that Shed. It almost seemed that ‘this’ was waiting for you.
I put my hand out and he handed me an Old Duncan yoyo. It looked Amazingly excellent considering how long it must have been accidentally or deliberately hidden in the wall of that shed.
I never had my own yoyo growing up. But this might have been the yoyo that was destined to be mine. Better late than never, lol.
…Off All the things that could have possibly been stored in that shed. My Very Last guess of ‘what might be in the shed’ would have been a yoyo🙀
The stars certainly aligned on that one. If I would have missed that last Auction day, I would have never known a thing about it.
And no doubt I will Always wonder how the little yo-yo ended up there?
I still have it. I will find it and post a pic…
The end.
PS… Well, it’s been about 3 + years since I posted this story. I might as well show a few pics of that little yo-yo the guys found in that shed they demo’d.
In the lucky book of yo-yo history, it shows up on plate 16 as number 376, pegged yo-yo built between the 1930s and 1950s, so it is definitely old enough to have been hidden accidentally or intentionally in that little shed for 30+ years. Personally, I have absolutely no way of knowing how it got there or how long it had been there?
But it’s definitely old enough.
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You should really put together a book of short yoyo tales. lol
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Where can I pre-order that book? I’d buy it in a heartbeat!!!
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Jake Bullock posted an image of jonrob buying one of his dunks a couple weeks ago. It seems he still Yoyos but just isn’t as involved with the community as much.
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I have been yo-yoing for 6 years and some of my greatest memories are the ones I had when I was just starting out with it. I think it was because of the newness of it all. I was just so fascinated by tricks I started to watch online and I was determined to learn as many tricks as possible. Seeing myself grow in yo-yoing during that time gave me some of the greatest memories of my life. It gave me more confidence as I got better, and it gave me something to be proud when people stop and stare at my tricks when I practice. Yo-yoing is s very uncommon skill and I feel proud that I am able to show people what yo-yoing really is.
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My favorite memories are of my dad taking me to Toys R Us when I was in grade school to buy me a new Duncan yoyo and him cheering me on like I won Worlds whenever I landed a new trick like Eli Hops.
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That’s an awesome memory!!!’
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I think more than anything I miss being completely ignorant and just starting to learn everything with my friends.
What I mean is when we all got different color Yomega’s from toys r us and would teach each other tricks on the playground. Have sleeper contests, etc.
Then you learned about the larger world, and contests, and the Internet forums, and all that.
It’s all good and fun - and I’m thankful for it. But I think I will always miss when around the world was the most insane thing I’ve ever seen and I couldn’t wait to show my friends
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