Monday, October 09, 2006
The Taste of Yo-Yos (and Apples and Chili)
Over the weekend I traveled with Evany to Chico, California, for the National Yo-Yo Championships and later that afternoon to Manton, California, home of the world’s greatest bootmaking teacher, for the Apple Festival. The day started around 5am when I AIM’d Evany to see if she was awake and felt like leaving early (since both of us seem to only require about 47 minutes of sleep a night anymore, this is a perfectly acceptable thing to do in our friendship). I soon learned, though, that she was way ahead of me and actually about to leave her house for mine.
After an uneventful but gorgeous early morning drive up the Sacramento Valley, where a nearly full moon in the west faced off against the rising sun in the east, we arrived in Chico early. We decided to stop by and pick up my aunt, who treated us to a morning meal at Sin of Cortez (terrible name, but super yummy breakfast menu, complete with an eggless savory dish, which, by the way, is a lot more elusive than it should be, in my opinion).
Then we were off to take a gander at the yo-yos. I confess my main memory of my own childhood toy is that sticking my tongue in it caused a tingling sensation. This, it turned out, was way more entertaining to me than actually playing with it--let alone learning “tricks.” When I told Evany this, she knowingly replied without any hesitation, “Yeah! Why did it make your tongue tingle? What was that stuff in there that did that?” And yet while attending the yo-yo happenings, we were both inexplicably compelled to purchase a series of self-published books about yo-yo physics by a superhero named Captain Yo--even though neither one of us knows anything about physics and our knowledge of yo-yos is limited to how they taste. I don’t think Captain Yo needed any special powers to discern this about us, but he happily sold us three full sets anyway.
We didn’t need these books, however, to figure out that attending a yo-yo competition isn’t for wussies. We meandered cautiously through the crowd of mostly boys and a handful of girls while projectiles on strings in every possible form imaginable whizzed in all directions. During the 4A String Unattached to Yo-Yo competition, several yo-yos even went flying right off the stage. After about two hours of deeply enthralling people- and yo-yo-watching, I was ready to move on to the Apple Festival in Manton. Evany, on the other hand, probably could have stayed all day. She has what seems to be an insatiable appetite for these sorts of things.
We didn’t arrive in Manton until about 2pm and there wasn’t an apple-related item left on the premises--save for an apple fritter I bought from some Jesus people. Lucky for us, my fellow bootmaking student and generous friend Glenn had been able to secure a dozen apple pies through Jack’s inside connections, pre-festival. Jack’s brother and friends were also in town and insisted Jack wear a “cattle buying hat” at his boot booth (he is prone to wearing berets and pink train engineer caps). After the festival, we went back to his place to drink some of that box o’ wine he likes so much (also pink) and listen to stories. While he made some delicious chili from a tri-tip he bought at the apple doin’s, Evany and I raided his garden and apple box.
Over the course of the night, I learned something about Evany Thomas that I didn’t know before. She accidentally let slip that not only does she know what a Ghillie suit is, but that she is also a regular reader of the Cabela’s catalog. If you don’t know what that is, let me explain: You are more likely to find a Cabela’s catalog in the homes of my people than a phone book or the Bible. It is filled with “3-D clothing” that comes in various odors, guns, knives, cute tops, giant fish pillows, and other miraculous objects. By the end of winter, many men I know (and apparently Evany) can recite the master catalog from front to back. Needless to say, Evany was a big hit in Manton.
