Spinning

Earth rotates on its axis at about 1,000 miles per hour. At the same time, our planet revolves around the sun at about 67,000 miles per hour. We are all going in circles.

To celebrate all this spinning, the Spinning Top and Yo-Yo Museum in Burlington, Wisconsin, established International Top Spinning Day in 2003. Their request was simplicity itself: get a top and set it in motion. Their goal was to spread awareness of the joy found in spinning a top and a reminder that “the world itself is, in essence, a spinning top, complete with the characteristic wobble.”

International Top Spinning Day is the second Wednesday in October. October 11th is the big day this year. The Museum will spin their tops at precisely 12 noon, but they encourage top spinning anytime and everywhere on the planet that day. If you lack a top, just take a penny and set it spinning.

I love tops and think they are a near-perfect toy for young children. For all the years I taught art to 2½ to 5-year-olds, I had a box of little wooden tops in my art room. Children who finished their art projects could play with the tops. As soon as their fingers learned how to set the top in motion, joy broke out. And then they invented the mesmerizing game of “whose top will spin the longest?”

Tops are among the oldest toys found by archeologists, and they have been unearthed on every continent except Antarctica. A carved wooden top found in King Tut’s tomb has been dated to 2000 BCE.

Each day of our lives could be called “the daily spin”, and that is cause for celebration.

4