…or hula-hoops.

What made me think of this was watching an old Smothers Brothers episode tonight, where Tommy does yo-yo tricks. Watching their show religiously as a kid, I can’t say now that I remember Mr. YoYo Man. Time-wise, it probably happened alongside the hula-hoop craze, which I got totally sucked into. And I was really, really good. I had several sizes of hula-hoops, and remember one time when I had 10 hoops going all at the same time. Let me see now: one around my neck, two around my upper arms, two around my wrists, one around my waist, two around my knees, and two around my ankles.

I remember hearing that my Dad - who could do handstands and walk on his hands - had wanted to join the circus when he was young. He’d have been great. I never thought about joining a circus, but a few years ago, my then-chiropractor asked if I’d ever been interested in acrobatics. I said I never thought about it, to which he replied I’d probably have been quite good at it, what with my short torso. That was news to me.

When we were kids, my sibs and I would practice acrobatic-like feats on our big front porch: cartwheels, high jumps, limbo, and other stuff I can’t think of right now.

Dad had always said if any of us wanted to run away from home, we should just keep going and never come back. The one time I did decide to run away from home (to a family friend’s house), Mom and several siblings decided to come with me. I can’t remember how far away the friend’s house was, but I was determined to get there. Somewhere, in one of my photo albums, I believe I have a picture of us walking out there.

Our friend’s name was Kitty Smith. She belonged to our church, and was the widow of a retired Navy captain. She, like so many church ladies, was always helping with church lunches and cleaning; whatever needed to be taken care of. She offered to let me come live with her when I was pregnant, 19, an unmarried. It’s a pity I didn’t take her up on it; she was a most thoughtful and nonjudgmental person.

Over my sink hangs a photograph of Kitty, my mother, and my aunt Esther, doing dishes after the dinner we had to celebrate my and my brother Greg’s First Communion. Mom is concentrating on washing dishes, but Kitty and Esther - drying dishes - look surprised, turning around when whoever took the picture got their attention.

Back to the hula-hoops. I’m guessing that if I still had a waistline, I could do again at least half the number of hula-hoops I could do sixty years ago.

You too, right?

Lucy