Happy National Yo-Yo Day [VIDEO]

On top of every other day that it just happens to be today, here's one that caught my eye. Happy National Yo-Yo Day, everybody!

The day is celebrated on June 6th because that just happens to be the birthday of one of the most famous yo-you makers, ever...Donald F. Duncan Sr.

Why is it so important to me? Because I hated yo-yos! I could never do them. Forget "Walking the Dog," or any number of tricks that made a yo-yo really cool.  I could never get them to climb back up the string even once.  Granted, this is a kid who couldn't even blow bubble gum until 6th grade, but still... 

That didn't stop me from buying a million of them, in all shapes and sizes, and hoping that I would soon be able to join the ranks of the cool yo-yo kids. I just needed to find the right fit. Never happened. All I ever did was watch them drop disappointingly, and then wind them up...over and over and over again. When I got bored with that I think I just started using the thing as an object of destruction.

Then one day I saw a commercial for the "yo ball." Hallelujah! My prayers were answered! Yo ball was the anti-yo-yo, specifically designed for all us wrist-flick challenged kids. It was like yo-yo training wheels. Yo ball always came back. I couldn't even screw it up!

I remember the joy I first felt when I sent the colorful orb whizzing toward the ground, only to have it speed hard and fast right back to my palm a split second later. I now had the power! Yo-yo boundaries that had previously been built between me and my friends were now gone. Or, so I thought. Too bad yo ball didn't look, sound, or behave like an actual yo-yo. You'd have to be really patient to accomplish tricks with the yo ball. Otherwise it didn't require much thought. Once my peers recognized the lack of real skill displayed and smelled my desperation for acceptance, the walls sprang up again.

In my adolescent years, I swapped my yo-yo dreams for girl dreams, but I would eventually be lured back to the frustration, thanks to one thing. I used to enjoy watching a revamped version of the original Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, with Tom and Dick Smothers. It was really funny! And one of the best things to come out of the show was Yo-Yo Man, a suspendered character played with delight by Tommy Smothers, himself a great yo-yo-ist. The little dance moves he performed and faces he made while doing his routines would make me laugh hysterically.

I thought I would share a couple of those moments and try to provide you with your own little bit of hysteria. Who knows? Maybe someday I'll have recovered enough from the childhood trauma to give the yo-yo another try. Don't hold your breath.