When I was younger and summering in the area in which I now live I was obsessed with it. Leaving at the end of each summer and returning to the comparably boring far Northwest suburbs of Chicago was a sad time and I wanted to bring a part of Northern Michigan home with me. One summer’s end I did.
This
area is basically several inches of top soil on top of a big dune. The soil is very sandy most anywhere and then there are the exposed dunes and beaches. Lake Michigan has a wide beach with beautiful clean sand. And many of the inland lakes have nice beaches but the sand isn’t recycled and churned as much by the waves. Crystal Lake with which I was so acquainted therefore had sand that was different than Lake Michigan’s. It wasn’t as fine and had a darker color.
The sand is very symbolic of the area and so at the end of one summer I brought home a gallon of Lake Michigan sand and a gallon of Crystal Lake sand. I wanted to carry some of each kind with me in the form of a good luck charm. So I started experimenting with small containers. After some unsatisfactory attempts I settled on McCormick brand food coloring containers.
I took two containers, threw away the pointy caps and using a needle, removed the dropper tips. Then, trying not to make a mess (didn’t want to get in trouble with my parents) I poured the food coloring down the drain and rinsed out the containers and the dropper tips really well. Then I took paper clips, straightened except for the middle-sized of the three bends and forced each end of a paper clip through each dropper tip so that it created a loop on the outside of the tip. I bent the free ends of the paper clips away from each other and making sure there was enough of a lip on each end to hold the loops in place, I clipped them with a wire cutter.
I filled one small container with Lake Michigan sand and the other with Crystal Lake sand. Then I put the dropper tips back in the tops of the containers. I used a small length of chain necklace to hold them together.
So, I’d be sitting in class in school, bored. My pen would be in my left hand to give the appearance that I was doing something productive. My right hand would be fiddling with my good luck charm, my little bit of memorabilia. I started flipping it through my fingers without thinking much about it. Over time I got really good at it. And then I realized I could flip it faster if I shortened the chain. While a novice would probably want a bit of length between the two loops I now make pairs with only a small loop made from a paper clip between the two hoops.
The motion begins with the chain or hoop between the thumb and index finger, and one container hanging over the back of the thumb. With a slight motion of the wrist that container is sent over the index finger. The middle finger moves and catches it, flipping the other container over the middle finger. This motion progresses through the fingers until it is being held between the pinky and ring finger and hanging over the pinky. Then the motion reverses.
The motion is so engrained in the reflexes of my right hand that I can do it with ridiculous speed. I would like to think it is the one thing that I can do better than anyone on the planet, but surely many people are capable of surpassing my talent.
Over time I came up with the name Knuckle Chucks, although I occasionally like to refer to them as my spare testicles! Right now I am looking at my only remaining pair as I haven’t made any in awhile. It is a pair someone found and knew to whom they belonged. The paper clip components are rusty and when I was flipping it to make sure I was describing the motion correctly the tops kept popping out of the containers. And this pair isn’t even authentic, each container being filled with salt. Tomorrow I will go to the store and then to the two beaches.