Happy Birthday to the Frisbee

I usually save this kind of item for Today's Upper, but when I saw this little tidbit it jogged my mind.

As usual, it took me to another time, seemingly a life ago.

It was on this date in 1957 that the folks at a toy company called Wham-O rolled out a new item. The company already was a major player in the toy world, what with having introduced us to the Super Ball and a plastic hoop called the Hula Hoop.

In 1957 they brought us another piece of plastic, in the shape of a disc.

It was called the Frisbee.

In the next 20 years, Wham-O sold 100 million of these plastic discs.

I have to admit I was never much of a Frisbee guy.

This was never more apparent to me than when I landed at the University of Colorado in 1976. As it turns out, some of the very first guys I met, who would eventually become my roommates, were from California.

I swear the very first thing these guys unpacked were their Frisbees.

I considered myself pretty athletic. I played a lot of sports in high school.

But I never quite mastered the Frisbee.

These guys did things with a Frisbee I could simply not imagine.

Maybe it was a California thing.

That and surfing, I guess.

Far out, right?

Well, it was a lot farther out than I ever could claim to be.

Happy Birthday to the Frisbee.

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