Here are my tops. Do you remember spinning your tops?
The most common game was drawing a circle in the dirt. Through your top toward the circle, making sure it is still spinning. The one who lands his top in the ring the most, wins.
The plugging was popular too. In it, after your top was spinning in the circle, the next player attempts to knock your top out of the circle with his still spinning.
In another game, the player whose top spins the longest wins.
Tops have been found that date as far back as 2000 B.C. These examples are rare.
The tops I have were made in the 1940s. They are made of wood with a metal tip. The jerk of a forty inch string, with a knot on one end and a button on the other that was wound around the top, sets it to spinning.
It has been many years since I tried to spin a top. It took four adults 30 minutes to spin one of these, but we finally made it.
Robert is a car inspector at the Crest Yard in Fort Worth. He and his wife Gloria operate "The Colony", a bed and breakfast located in the Historic Fort Worth Stockyards.
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