Look! A Yo-yo, Ma!

On the train ride back to San Jose from AT&T Park in San Francisco, one of the numerous college kids along for the ride whipped out his yo-yo and began playing it along the way.

It was a plastic yo-yo, and he didn't have enough room to do anything fancier than basic free-wheeling and the easy "walk the dog" trick.

And that brought back memories of my yo-yo days in the '50s. We all had wooden Duncan yo-yos and each of us progressed to our own level of incompetency.

I guess I fell somewhere in the middle of the pack when it came to yo-yo tricks. I could do many, but there were some intricate ones that I didn't even come close to mastering.

But we loved our yo-yos and eagerly anticipated the Duncan Yo-Yo Company's annual visit of yo-yo experts who came to Hilo on promotional tours.

Yo-yo whiz Barney Akers came to town a couple of times, putting on demonstrations at the old Kress store in downtown Hilo. Afterwards, he'd gather a bunch of us outside and carve our initials on our yo-yos.

It has been said that Mr. Akers trained more professional demonstrators than any other person, in the art of the yo-yo. His proteges were called "Barney players."

In 2002, Mr. Akers, Don Duncan Jr. (Duncan's president) and Pedro Flores (the "Father of the Yo-yo) comprised the inaugural class of the American Yo-Yo Associaton Hall of Fame.

Who knew?