You're never too old to fly (05/08/06)

“Have you bought my birthday present yet?” my brother asked.

When I told him that I hadn’t, he instructed me to get pen and paper and copy down his instructions. First he gave me a website address then several code numbers. He assured me that nothing he was asking for was very expensive and told me to choose from any of the options he provided or if I found something else that was OK, too.

Being the good sister (actually I’m his only sister) I dutifully did as I was told. The website featured kites, kites and more kites with a few boomerangs and windsocks for good measure. Some of the kites cost more than I earn in a week and one or two cost more than I make in a month! I choked until I found the ones that matched the product numbers he gave me. They were much closer to my price range.

There were flying things of every size, shape and color. They were a far cry from the paper and balsa wood kite I begged my mother for when I was a kid. It tore after I crashed it the third time. I never did get it to fly.

I rejected the stunt kites on the website as being way too expensive and settled on a rainbow-hued contraption called a facet kite. I had no idea what that meant but the blurb said it was easy to fly and the picture was pretty. Plus it came with string and a winder.

A week later a box that was taller than me arrived on our doorstep. It didn’t look that big in the picture. I was afraid that if I opened it then I wouldn’t be able to get whatever it was back into the box. It lurked in a corner until Sunday when I covered it in sunny yellow paper and tossed it in the car along with a 30-cent plastic airplane on a string that I had wrapped up in a shredded wheat box.

I gave him the airplane first. He unwound the string and swung the plane around. It promptly escaped and tried to attack all of us. Luckily we ducked. We all had to try it and even my mother gave it a whirl. It was a very dangerous living room for a few minutes. Then we loaded up and went to his wife’s parent’s house. They weren’t home. We stayed anyway.

My brother unloaded a three-wheeler, a boomerang, a nylon, metal and plastic airplane and the aforementioned kite. First he tried to get me to throw the boomerang. He demonstrated and then sent his son after it when it didn’t return. I was told to hold it at a 30-degree angle and throw straight. After it landed about five feet in front of me he told me that I hadn’t maintained the required 30-degree angle. How am I supposed to know what 30-degrees is?

His 10-year-old son was the only one who could get the boomerang to return. He was also the only one who got it stuck on top of the camper awning where it stayed for a couple of hours.

So we moved on to the plane. They showed me how to toss it and I tried. It also landed about five feet in front of me. After they laughed at me we tried again. When they got tired of making fun of me we took off for the “cemetery.” You’ll notice the quote marks. The “cemetery” proved to be a few abandoned stones from the 1800’s at the top of a periwinkle-covered hill.

Then it was back to the flying machines. The kite was put together and was quite pretty. There was only an occasional slight breeze that would last for a few seconds but they managed to get the nylon and plastic orb into the air a couple of times. I didn’t even try.

We finally gave up on flying and took a short walk back into the woods. He told us that if his in-laws ever sold the place they wanted to buy it. I could see why. It was peaceful and quiet. It was also the perfect place to fly a kite, or to poke gentle fun at an inept sister.[[In-content Ad]]