OK. �Mrs. Murphy wants to know just WHO invented this thing???

Thoughts on hula hoops:

Picture someone 80 pounds overweight trying to fling this thing around their body -�and getting it caught in the folds of skin.

Or someone on whom every rib is visible - even through a snowsuit. You could STILL hear it bouncing off bones.

Short people found the things way too big, and could use them for jump ropes.

Tall people would trip trying to get out of them.

Everyone I knew back then thought the hula hoop was better for weight loss and maintaining a figure than Jack LaLane.

Bringing them to school was very difficult, especially if you rode a bus. Hula hoop withdrawal was common, forcing kids to substitute another craving - the one for rock candy.

You were considered talented if you could properly use your hula hoop and chew bazooka bubble gum at the same time.

Using your hula hoop, chewing bazooka and blowing bubbles was even better.

I don't remember what happened to my hula hoop. I suspect one parent or�the other scoffed it during a move and discretely "lost" it on a trip to the dump.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

� �

� �