Good Idea!

I wish I could have a good idea. That way, everyone would say, "Hey! There's the guy with that good idea!" I think I would like that.

The evolution of innovation is fascinating to me. It seems like only yesterday, my brothers and sister were using a couple of tin cans and some string to communicate. Now, it seems like every kid has a cell phone.

We had skateboards, but they weren't very stable. If you weren't getting road rash a couple of times a month, you just weren't doing it right. Now there are guys making buckets full of money doing amazing things on a skateboards. I consider myself a pioneer. I literally "paved the way" for these guys.

Home computers were still decades away from becoming the new reason for dogs to eat kids homework. Heck, we didn't even have calculators then. We had to do math with formulas on paper or, in my case, sit close enough to someone who did.

My favorite toy was a yo-yo. I didn't go anywhere without it, until my mom took it away. It was a Duncan yo-yo, and the original string lasted a long time. One day, it broke so I went to the toy store and bought Duncan replacement strings. The replacement strings didn't last long at all.

I went through all six strings in a matter of weeks. Ridiculous. I sent a letter to Duncan, complaining about the quality of the replacement strings. They sent me a letter of apology, along with a lot of strings. Cool!

I put a string on and started doing one of my favorite tricks, "around the world". In hindsight, it was probably not a good idea to attempt it in the house. Just as I started swinging the yo-yo around to do the trick, the string snapped and I watched the yo-yo disappear through the large closed window in the kitchen. Goodbye yo-yo and the ability to sleep on my back for a while.

I still have a couple of yo-yos. I think I'll dig them out today and see if I can still do some tricks... Outside. I think it would be far worse to have my wife take it away, than my mother. I could no longer plead ignorance. I would have to rely on the fact that I'm still 10 years old, mentally. I would get no argument from her, but I would still be without a yo-yo.

I also loved my slinky. Not the cheap plastic knock off toys you see today. We had metal slinkys. They would last forever and if you had stairs in your house, it was hours of fun.

Over time, the slinky would get stretched out and become a weapon. You could easily trip unsuspecting passers-by with a stretched out slinky. Just one more way of getting into big trouble with a small toy. You can still buy metal slinkys in the gift shop at "The Cracker Barrel" restaurants.

See you tomorrow.

Get my latest book, "The Twisted Musings of a Comedian II" on Amazon.com. Now available for Kindle! Click here!

Connect with me on Facebook and Twitter!

Facebook: Jerry Mabbott
Twitter: @jmabbott