yoyo

by horace p sternwall

do you remember al? i could remember a lot of als. and a lot of bobs and charlies and daves. al with the yoyo. what is a yoyo? it was a toy. kids played with them. that must have been before my time. anything else about this al, that i should remember him? he used to hang out with bennie, at the chinese restaurant. there are a lot of chinese restaurants. this was back in the old days, before they changed everything. so you are saying i knew this al, and this bennie, back in the day? i thought you might have. did they ever do anything for me? they might have, i couldn’t say. might have don’t mean much these days. you have a point there. now if this al and this bennie ever did anything to me, that i would remember. anybody crosses me, i never forget, but wait my time. al was a pretty easygoing guy, always playing with his yoyo. so what was a yoyo anyway? what could you do with it? you could do a lot of things. mostly it just went up and down. up and down? not in and out? mostly up and down. like exercise? like pushups and stuff, like in a gym? sort of. i was never an exercise guy. i was more of a barroom or barber shop guy. each to his own. you don’t hear much about gyms any more. are you kidding? they are all over the place now. there are more of them than bars. women go to them. women used to go to bars, some of them. not like this. gyms are big. you might think about buying one. it shows you what i know. anyway, as i was saying about al - right, al, what about al? he got elected mayor. mayor! i didn’t know they had mayors any more. you do not hear too much about them, i will give you that.