Duncan Comes to the Paper Shack

 

As a kid in Wichita it was a treat when the impeccably-dressed Duncan Top guy came to school to announce an upcoming contest and show us his tricks.  There was a concrete pad next to the school that faced out onto the dirt playground and this was where we all gathered to throw our tops.  He would just show up at recess and go through his tricks which were so far beyond what any of us could do.  Whoever could do the neatest trick would get his name engraved on the crown of his top.  The Duncan Guy would pull out his pocketknife and quickly carve the owner’s name in some exotic script.  He would tell us where to meet for the contest after school and it was always either outside of Tompkin’s Drug Store or Yost’s Grocery.  For the last trick he always did a version of “Walk the Tightrope” where the finale was flipping the top high into the air, opening one side of his coat and catching it in his inside pocket.  Sound familiar?   

As my top skills fell somewhere below the middle of the pack, I never got beyond doing more than three tricks without bleeding so I always attended the contests as a spectator.  The winners would get new tops that retailed for $0.25, the runners-up got their names engraved on the crowns of their theirs and Tompkins or Yost’s would make a few bucks selling new units, strings and 5 cent Marshmallow Root-beers.  Tops were available in any drug or grocery store in Wichita.  Nobody sold Yo-yo’s.  I had heard of them but had never seen one in my life.

The Job Interview

 

 

Say what you will about Chris………and if it is outrageous it’s probably true.  When she was hired from outside the company to fill the position of Action Sports Manager folks were wondering WTAF?  What has she got and what is she going to be like to work for?  That was some fairly scary shit right there. 

 

Maybe it was because she was so carefully watched that we picked up some behaviors that were way outside of REI norms.  Even back then there was a modicum of REI-nice that she didn’t get the memo on, but it was clear that she knew her hardgoods and was a promotor, the likes of which, REI had never seen before.  Her mind and mouth moved faster than any internal filters that she may have possessed so they had no shot at moderating her message.  Mind to mouth at the speed of light was how things went and she always spoke at least 25 decibels louder than everyone else so things that she said often raised some eyebrows.  She bent and broke rules, too, but they were always the rules that had stifling, unintended and negative consequences on our Co-op and Member’s wellbeing so everyone learned to go along whenever possible.  She always acted in her team’s best interests which must have pissed off a few people above her pay grade.  Life around Chris was always an adventure.