Here's my story:
Chapter 1
Back in 2001 I was shopping for some craft supplies at a Ben Franklin store in Des Moines, Iowa. These stores have a small toy aisle similar to what you might find at a pharmacy or a small grocery, and it was there that I found my first top. They had a few wooden BC tops that for some reason caught my interest and I bought all 3 that they had (one of which I still have). In subsequent visits to the store, they never had the tops again.
I had a vague idea of how they worked, but I had never seen anyone throw a top and the instructions weren't helping me get started. After two solid hours of frustration, I gave up on the directions and called my then 60 year-old father for help. As I had guessed, my dad said he played with tops regularly as a kid and he was able to walk me through my first successful throw.
I really enjoyed these tops at the time even though all I could do with them was spin, scoop and sky-rocket. I was not even aware of the boomerang or trapeze throws, let alone all the tricks that progress from these two fundamentals. Eventually I grew bored with the tops and put them away, but I still got them out every once in awhile to mess around with them a little or show them to friends.
Chapter 2
Back in August my wife Connie and I had our first baby. Recent and frustrating Christmas shopping had shown me how short Pensacola is on specialty toy stores, so in January I was web searching for some interesting toys for Wyatt when I came across the site for Active People. They make really cool toys for all ages, including astrojax, which I always kind of liked. They had some embedded videos of some people doing really cool things with astrojax so I went to youtube to see more. There I came across videos with all kinds of different skill toys. One of these was a video with spintops posted by one cowgirlsam, who I understand is none other than our very own SpinQueen!
I was totally blown away by what she (and her kids) could do with tops. I had never seen anything like it. After another half-hour of videos (some by ta0 I think) I was badly hooked. So much for toys for little Wyatt! I have always had a small fascination with skill toys, but I never had the desire to master any of them until I saw those spintop videos. Within another 15 minutes I had ordered a Blizzard and a Sidewinder, and I have not been able to put them down since (except for when Wyatt won't stop crying ).
I am very glad to have stumbled onto this fun and challenging hobby, and I'm pleased to be a part of the community here as well.
I hope to be able to contribute something here soon. Until then, I think I will mostly be asking lots of questions of all you experts out there.
SpinQueen, thanks for that first video.
Ta0, thanks for the great site.
And to all the rest, all the best!
And who is Jim Schreiber?
