Knots in My Yo-Yo String Read Online Free

parked car, daring us to tag him. We reached for his arm—it was gone; for his stomach—gone. Each body part was under separate control, free to move in all directions. It was like trying to tag an eel. If Jerry Fox were a letter of the alphabet, he would have been an
S
. He was untouchable. His nickname said it all: “The Pro.”
    Summers gave us time to gorge on sports. On a typical summer day I dropped my baseball glove into the chrome-plated basket of my bicycle and pedaled out the dirt path to the Little League field at the park. Other guys came from other directions. The rest of the day went like this: Play baseball until lunch, pedal home to eat, pedal back to the park (this time with basketball in bike basket), play basketball at park court until dinner, pedal home to eat, return for more basketball until dark.
    Next day: Do it again.

    I’m in the back row (with a cap), a finalist in a foul-shooting contest in the park (age 12, 1953). On my right is Dennis Magee, whose last name I gave to a character called Maniac.

Never
          the
               Monkey
    In a green metal box in a bedroom closet, tucked into a fuzzy gray cotton pouch, lies the most cherished memento of my grade-school days. It is a gold-plated medal no bigger than a postage stamp. Inscribed on the back are the words “50- YARD DASH — CHAMPION .”
    The medal came from the only official race I ever participated in. There were many unofficial ones … 
    “Race you to the store!”
    “Last one in’s a monkey!”
    “Ready  …  Set  …  Go!”
    Like kids the world over, we raced to determine the fastest. In the early 1950s on the 800 block of George Street in the West End of Norristown, Pennsylvania, that was me. I was usually the winner, and never the monkey.
    I reached my peak at the age of twelve. That summer I led the Norristown Little League in stolen bases. In an all-star playoff game I did something practically unheard of: I was safe at first base on a ground ball to the pitcher.
    Some days I pulled my sneaker laces extra tight and went down to the railroad tracks. The cinders there had the feel of a running track. I measured off fifty or a hundred yards and sprinted the distance, timing myself withmy father’s stopwatch. Sometimes, heading back to the starting line, I tried to see how fast I could run on the railroad ties. Sometimes I ran on the rail.
    It was during that year that I won my medal. I represented Hartranft in the fifty-yard dash at the annual track-and-field meet for the Norristown grade schools. The meet was held at Roosevelt Field, where the high school track and football teams played.
    Favored to win the race was Laverne Dixon of Gotwals Elementary. “Froggy,” as he was known to everyone but his teachers, had won the fifty-yard dash the year before as a mere fifth grader. Surely he would win again. My goal was to place second.
    When the starter barked, “Ready!” I got into position: one knee and ten fingertips on the cinder track. I knew what to do from the many meets I had attended with my father. I glanced to my left and right and saw nothing but shins—everyone else was standing. I could not have known it then, but the race was already mine.
    I was off with the gun. My memory of those fifty yards has nothing to do with sprinting but rather with two sensations. The first was surprise that I could not see any other runners. This led to a startling conclusion:
I must be ahead!
Which led to the second sensation: an anxious expectation, a waiting to be overtaken.
    I never was. I won.
    Froggy Dixon didn’t even come in second. That went to Billy Steinberg, a stranger then, who would become mybest friend in junior high school. He would also grow to be faster than I, as would many of my schoolmates. But that was yet to come. For the moment, as I slowed down and trotted into a sun the color and dazzle of the medal I was about to receive, I knew only the wonder of seven