Hacky sack is suddenly cool again – The Boston Globe

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Last Friday, my week in hacky sack mania ended just as abruptly as it began, in the office of the orthopedic surgeon who had replaced my left hip in January, staring down at my feet as I confessed that I may have done something kinda dumb.

But let’s start at the beginning, the previous Saturday, when I overheard my 16-year-old son telling my wife that all the kids at his school were obsessed with hacky sack.

“I’m sorry,” I interrupted. “Did you say hacky sack? As in, um, hacky sack?”

Yes, hacky sack, the footbag game that was a stoner favorite generations ago. It had become a mania in the week since they returned from April vacation, he informed me, and it was all over social media.

“I have a hacky sack around here somewhere,” I declared, a tad too excitedly, and was just getting ready to start boring him with stories about Gen X when he cut me off.

“Yes, it’s in my pocket,” he said. “They’re sold out everywhere, so I had to find yours.”

Wait? What is happening right now?

It gets weirder

First thing that Monday morning, I was having hilarious phone conversations with educators around the state, each of them as delighted and confused as I was, trying to figure out how, overnight, Massachusetts high schools had been overrun with “sack.”

On May 7, I published a story about the phenomenon, which seems to be mostly among boys. It may have stemmed from a couple TikTok videos that circulated before school vacation, then exploded when the students returned, and immediately birthed an entire social media ecosystem, with seemingly every school having a hacky sack “team,” and even an Instagram account putting out very unofficial “official MIAA hacky sack rankings.”

That day also happened to be my 50^th birthday, and more surprising than the birthday party a bunch of friends threw me that night was that I would spend the party talking to all the other parents about hacky sack.

Soon, the trend spread out of New England, where the rebirth had begun, and other publications picked up on it. Who knew I’d stumbled upon a national scoop?

The ‘flying clipper’

Now let me bore you with Gen X stories, because we often lament that our kids don’t get to have the sort of childhoods we had, before social life moved online and into their pockets. And I can’t say any of us saw a hacky sack going into their pockets next to their phones, but it is hard to picture anything being more ideal for this moment. It’s unstructured play, it’s social, it’s accessible, and it doesn’t involve a damn screen.

And not to brag, but I was pretty decent when I would hack-in to a circle in my Tevas, so as I watched my kids fumble around like newborn giraffes in their first days as sackers, I couldn’t help myself. We passed around for a few moments, I was feeling it, and so like an idiot I did a move I haven’t done in 25 years where you jump up, raise one leg, and kick underneath it with the other (Google tells me this move is called a “flying clipper.”) I landed it perfectly as my kids said “I didn’t know you could do that!” and my body said “You can’t.”

Thankfully, after the X-rays came back, I was told the artificial hip looked fine, and I just had a mild case of something called “delusion.”

“Maybe leave the hacky sack to the kids,” the surgeon told me.

Gladly. I’m just amazed they want it.

🧩 5 Across: Slightly open | ☁️ 52° Weekend warming

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To save the middle class: Massachusetts wrote America’s first wage standard in 1912. “We are well placed to write the next one,” UMass Amherst economist Arindrajit Dube writes.

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By David Beard

🎤 Guess who’s coming to town? Our summer arts guide points out the 80 best finds of the season, from Rosalia and a post-World Cup Shakira to an SNL reunion night, “The Sleeping Beauty,” and the art of Winslow Homer.

🎻 But wait, there’s more! Alec Baldwin will narrate “Lincoln Portrait” with the BSO at Tanglewood.

📺 What about this weekend? Our streaming picks include the thriller “The Lurker,” Colin Jost’s version of “Jeopardy,” and a HBO documentary with Sandra Oh, Kumail Nanjiani, and Bowen Yang.

🍕 Get out! The weather’s going to be great. Do you want sugar pizza? Or to kick back in your choice of beer gardens? Here are the week’s most notable restaurant openings around Boston.

🐶 Love is ruff: During this week’s Blind Date, “we talked a lot about her dog, Clementine, a sheepadoodle.” Plus, in Love Letters, will this college relationship make it through summer?

💤 Better sleep: Here’s an eight-second trick to get you back to sleep in the middle of the night. (Today)

⛰️ Mount Washington: This writer first ascended to the top of the wild, gusty New Hampshire peak at age 4 — and has kept coming back. Why? “The fragrant forest, chickadees, ice cold streams, and awe-inspiring vistas,” John Dodge writes.

Thanks for reading Starting Point. Have a great weekend!

This newsletter was edited by David Beard and produced by Ryan Orlecki. Today’s hacky sack soundtrack is Two Princes, by Spin Doctors.

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Billy Baker can be reached at billy.baker@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram @billy_baker.