Up-up and away, then down

Our former neighbor, Old Bobby was a slight fellow with a big mouth who liked to imbibe, so you never knew if his stories were true or not.

Instead of reading the local paper, he had his nose in the "pony papers" because he said in his day he was the best bookie in town.

He claimed he "bought" his wife a baby for her 40th birthday (adopted a boy).

When his ex daughter-in-law's husband telephoned and threatened to drive by and shoot up his house, the police told Old Bobby to get out of the front yard and head to the basement. Old Bobby said he had been a sniper in WWII, and he wasn't going anywhere.  

WE headed to the basement. The drive-by never occurred.

In the fall, when the apples ripened out back, Old Bobby couldn't find his ladder, and he couldn't have climbed it even if he could have found it. 

He tied thirty feet of clothesline onto a claw head hammer and flung it repeatedly into the tree, hoping to harvest enough apples to make a pie. We were waiting for him to knock himself silly.

When he came to the garden fence to tell us about his success, he toppled OVER the rickety, 36 inch chain link fence and landed face up on his back in OUR yard.

"I'm going to call an ambulance!" I said.

Fish-eyed he said, "Nah, I'm just going to lay here a while." 

 
I insisted.

He retorted, "You remind me of Judge Judy. You scare me."

I let him lay there.

A week later Old Bobby saw me making a homemade kite out of a plastic grocery bag.

"Let ME show YOU how to make a kite. In my day, I was a professional kite builder and I used to win kite dueling contests," Old Bobby bragged.

Uh-huh! Well  it was my day, and I was going to do it my way. Nicole and I had a blast outside that windy March day. I taped a piece of paper to the bag and Nicole decorated it. I added a small tail and string to the handles. This is so much fun for small children.She laughed when her bag filled with air and the wind tugged the string about 6 feet off the ground as she ran.

If you make one, leave it tied to a fence or post when you are finished running, and let your child watch the wind gusts fill the bag and make it rise... and fall.

When I taught preschoolers, we called these kites wind bags. I guess I could have called them Bobbys.